| Introduction: No Nation Untouched | ix |
| Part 1 | Setting the Stage | 1 |
| Chapter 1 | Prelude to War | 3 |
| Japanese Aggression | 4 |
| Fascism Takes Hold of Italy | 4 |
| Hitler's Rise to Power | 5 |
| American Isolationism | 9 |
| Chapter 2 | Fanning the Flames | 13 |
| Germany Rearms | 14 |
| Hitler Takes Austria | 14 |
| Czechoslovakia Divided and Conquered | 16 |
| Hitler Pushes East | 18 |
| Hitler Takes Denmark and Norway | 23 |
| The Fall of France | 25 |
| Mussolini Joins the Fray | 28 |
| Japan Extends Its Military Might | 31 |
| Chapter 3 | The United States Enters the War | 33 |
| The Attack on Pearl Harbor | 34 |
| A Well-Planned Attack | 37 |
| Pearl Harbor Investigations | 40 |
| The American Response | 42 |
| Hawaii under Martial Law | 45 |
| The American Internment Camps | 47 |
| Part 2 | The Major Battles of World War II | 51 |
| Chapter 4 | Europe | 53 |
| The Battle of the Atlantic | 54 |
| The Battle of Britain | 59 |
| Germany's Soviet Campaign | 66 |
| The Soviet Offensive | 74 |
| The Italian Campaign | 79 |
| The Normandy Invasion | 84 |
| The Battle of the Bulge | 92 |
| Chapter 5 | The Pacific | 95 |
| The Battle of the Coral Sea | 96 |
| Wake Island | 102 |
| Midway | 103 |
| The Philippines | 107 |
| The Battle of Guadalcanal | 115 |
| The Battle of Iwo Jima | 118 |
| The Battle of Okinawa | 119 |
| Chapter 6 | North Africa | 123 |
| Egypt | 124 |
| Germany Enters the African War | 125 |
| The Northwest Africa Campaign | 128 |
| The North African Assault | 130 |
| Part 3 | The Major Players | 135 |
| Chapter 7 | The Political Leaders | 137 |
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt | 138 |
| Harry S Truman | 144 |
| Winston Churchill | 148 |
| Joseph Stalin | 152 |
| Charles de Gaulle | 156 |
| Edouard Daladier | 158 |
| Adolf Hitler | 158 |
| Benito Mussolini | 163 |
| Emperor Hirohito | 167 |
| Hideki Tojo | 169 |
| Chapter 8 | The Military Leaders | 171 |
| Dwight Eisenhower | 172 |
| Bernard Montgomery | 175 |
| George Patton | 176 |
| Douglas MacArthur | 178 |
| George Marshall | 180 |
| Chester Nimitz | 182 |
| William Halsey | 183 |
| Erwin Rommel | 184 |
| Karl Donitz | 186 |
| Masaharu Homma | 188 |
| Isoroku Yamamoto | 189 |
| Chapter 9 | Other Prominent Figures | 191 |
| Adolf Eichmann | 192 |
| Joseph Goebbels | 193 |
| Heinrich Himmler | 194 |
| Rudolf Hess | 196 |
| Anne Frank | 197 |
| Oskar Schindler | 198 |
| Eleanor Roosevelt | 199 |
| Part 4 | On the Battlefront | 201 |
| Chapter 10 | Ground Weapons | 203 |
| Personal Guns | 204 |
| Artillery | 205 |
| Antiaircraft Weapons | 207 |
| Tanks | 209 |
| Other Land Weapons | 210 |
| Chapter 11 | Air Weapons | 215 |
| Bombers | 216 |
| Bombs | 219 |
| Fighter Planes | 222 |
| Gliders | 225 |
| Guided Missiles and Rockets | 226 |
| Airships | 229 |
| Chapter 12 | Weapons and Vessels at Sea | 231 |
| Aircraft Carriers | 232 |
| Battleships | 233 |
| Destroyers | 235 |
| Submarines | 236 |
| Other Sea Weapons | 238 |
| Liberty Ships | 239 |
| Chapter 13 | The Horrors of War | 241 |
| Battlefield Conditions | 242 |
| Casualties | 244 |
| Suffer the Children | 245 |
| Prisoners of War | 246 |
| Battlefield Injuries and Medicine | 250 |
| Chapter 14 | The Axis Giants Fall | 253 |
| Germany Surrenders | 254 |
| Japan Surrenders | 257 |
| Part 5 | Nazism and the Holocaust | 263 |
| Chapter 15 | German Anti-Semitism | 265 |
| The Need for a Scapegoat | 266 |
| Legislated Genocide | 267 |
| The Final Solution | 270 |
| Concentration Camps | 273 |
| Chapter 16 | The War Crimes Trials | 277 |
| The Nuremberg Trials | 278 |
| Trial Results | 280 |
| The Tokyo Trials | 283 |
| The Doctors' Trial | 283 |
| Part 6 | America During the War Years | 287 |
| Chapter 17 | Life at Home | 289 |
| Hard Times on the Home Soil | 290 |
| The Role of Propaganda | 294 |
| Chapter 18 | The Roles of Women During the War | 297 |
| Women Called to Morale Duty | 298 |
| Women at Work | 299 |
| Women at War | 301 |
| Chapter 19 | The War in the Media--During and After | 303 |
| On the Big Screen | 304 |
| Chronicling the War | 307 |
| The Influence of Comic Art | 310 |
| Chapter 20 | Rebuilding the World | 317 |
| The Yalta Conference | 318 |
| The Postwar Pacific | 322 |
| Appendix I | Resources | 326 |
| Books | 326 |
| Web Sites | 327 |
| Organizations | 327 |
| Museums and Memorials | 327 |
| Appendix II | The Holocaust in Numbers | 329 |
| Appendix III | Awards and Decorations | 330 |
| Index | 331 |