World War 2

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• 7/3/2020
  

  This Independence Day, Celebrate and Carry On America's Past Generosity

  by William Lambers

  As we celebrate America’s birthday on July 4th, let’s remember how our nation’s generosity has aided many hungry and oppressed people around the world. 

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• 7/3/2020
  

  Book Review: Erik Larsen, 'The Splendid and the Vile'

  by Jeff Roquen

  In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson has not only produced an engaging and timely portrait of the perilous period of when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany but has also illuminated how tragedy and loss can be turned into a triumph and justice through steadfast determination and solidarity of purpose.  

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• SOURCE: National Interest
  6/29/2020
  

  Meet the Little Boat that Won World War II and Crushed Hitler for Good

  The landing boat made famous on the beaches of Normandy was rumored to have been designed for liquor smugglers during Prohibition. 

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/23/2020
  

  In Germany, Confronting Shameful Legacy Is Essential Part of Police Training

  In the postwar era, Germany fundamentally redesigned law enforcement to prevent past atrocities from ever repeating. Its approach may hold lessons for police reform everywhere.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/14/2020
  

  Why the Confederate Flag Flew During World War II

  by Matthew Delmont

  As white, southern troops raised the battle flag, they showed that they were fighting for change abroad—but the status quo at home.

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  6/16/2020
  

  After World War II, Most ‘Ordinary Nazis’ Returned to Lives of Obscurity. The World Must Recover Their Stories Before It’s Too Late

  by Daniel Lee

  The act of recovering perpetrators’ voices sheds light on consent and conformity under the swastika, enabling us to ask new questions about responsibility, blame and manipulation.

• 
• 6/21/2020
  

  After Those Cruel Wars Were Over: Lessons from Two Economic Recoveries

  by Hugh Rockoff and Mark Wilson

  An economist and economic historian argue that a well-planned response to the economic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic could result in economic recoveries like those that followed the two World Wars.

• 
• SOURCE: History
  6/16/2020
  

  The Secret British Campaign to Persuade the U.S. to Enter WWII

  Henry Hemming writes that British intelligence services planted made-up episodes of heroic military raids on Nazi-occupied Europe and fabricated Nazi plans to invade South America to try to overcome prevailing isolationist sentiments among Americans. 

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• SOURCE: Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
  6/14/2020
  

  Edith White, World War II ‘Code Girl’ and Norfolk Academy Librarian who Fought Massive Resistance, Dies at 96

  Edith White was part of a team of women who served the US Navy as codebreakers, and fought for democratic values like integrated schools after the war's end. 

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  The SS Officer's Armchair

  by Daniel Lee

  The discovery of a trove of documents in an old armchair led the author on a five-year search for information about a previously anonymous Nazi, whose history intersected with the author's family in surprising ways.

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Misremembering the Fall of France 80 Years Later (Part 2)

  by Robert J. Young

  The French defeat was driven by strategic error and faulty battlefield strategy, but not by a lack of will to fight. 

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Misremembering the Fall of France 80 Years Later (Part 1)

  by Robert J. Young

  On the 80th anniversary of the Fall of France, it's time to retire the idea that the French surrendered without a fight. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/9/2020
  

  Solving the Mystery of What Became of J.F.K.’s Other Patrol Boat

  A boat believed to be the PT-59, a Navy vessel Kennedy commanded after the PT-109 was sunk, has been mired in the muck off Manhattan for decades.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/9/2020
  

  Its Defenses Undone by a Virus, France Seeks Lessons From a Lost War

  Marc Bloch's book "Strange Defeat," written in 1940 about France’s defeat in World War II, has taken on a curious resonance as the country gazes across the border at Germany and asks why it has weathered the pandemic better.

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• SOURCE: Air Mail
  6/6/2020
  

  Nazi Lockdown

  by Ronald C. Rosbottom

  The German occupation crushed ordinary life in Paris as its citizens hid from the “brown plague.”

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  6/2/2020
  

  The Search for the Truth About the Nazi Plot to Assassinate FDR

  by Howard Blum

  The events surrounding Operation Long Jump, as the Nazi assassination mission that targeted the Tehran Conference was known, remained a deeply buried official secret.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  5/31/2020
  

  Nazi or Hero? Historian Looks at the Stories a German Consultant Told of His Father

  A study from historian Michael Wolffsohn finds some truth and some falsehoods in a prominent businessman’s portrayal of his father as a Nazi resister.

• 
• SOURCE: Calgary Herald
  5/31/2020
  

  Robert J. Sawyer Tackles the Atomic Bomb with Alternate-History Novel, “The Oppenheimer Alternative”

  Robert J. Sawyer's novel is built around the ethical and moral ramifications of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the author hopes will receive deep reflection on their 75th anniversaries.

• 
• SOURCE: Yale University Press Blog
  5/29/2020
  

  Fake News, Then and Now

  by Tracy Campbell

  Rumor and gossip during World War II reflected currents of racism in American society, as well as many citizens' unwillingness to make deep sacrifices to the war effort. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  5/28/2020
  

  Botch on the Rhine (Review)

  A new book blames British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's thirst for glory for Operation Market Garden, an ill-fated effort to drop airborne troops behind the Rhine River to accelerate the Allied invasion of Germany.