The Legacy of World War II

This thoughtful book describes the course of events that followed the end of World War II, and the war's long-term legacy. Readers will learn about war crimes trials in Japan and Germany. The Nuremburg Trials detailed the horrifying mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The Paris Peace Conference in 1947 redrew international boundaries and created the state of Israel in an attempt to ensure the survival of the Jewish people. It also split Germany into two parts, each occupied by different countries and setting the stage for a new kind of war—the cold war. Discussion boxes describe reconstruction in Germany and Japan, what lessons leaders learned from the mistakes of WWI's Treaty of Versailles, and the founding of the United Nations.