Hitler's American Gamble
Pearl Harbor and Germany's March to Global War
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A riveting account of the five most crucial days in twentieth-century diplomatic history: from Pearl Harbor to Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States
By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked—and the United States remained at peace.
Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11. Tracing developments in real time and backed by deep archival research, historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler’s intervention was not the inexplicable decision of a man so bloodthirsty that he forgot all strategy, but a calculated risk that can only be understood in a truly global context. This book reveals how December 11, not Pearl Harbor, was the real watershed that created a world war and transformed international history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historians Simms (Europe) and Laderman (Sharing the Burden) focus in this fine-grained if plodding chronicle on the four days between the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Nazi Germany's declaration of war against the U.S. They contend that America's lend-lease program, which supplied allied countries with food, oil, and weaponry, brought the country to the edge of outright conflict, despite public sentiment in favor of isolationism, and helped provoke the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Following the attack, the public was eager to declare war on Japan, but President Roosevelt faced an uphill battle in convincing people to enter another European war. According to the authors, Hitler, who believed that the Japanese attack would put an end to the lend-lease supplies fueling the British and Russian war efforts and weaken the American military, made a grave strategic blunder in declaring war on the U.S. on Dec. 11, 1941. In so doing, he "turn two potentially separate conflicts into a truly world war." Though Simms and Laderman take a fresh angle on the buildup to WWII, they overstuff the story with extraneous details and deep dives into diplomatic maneuverings. This one is best suited to completists.
