Winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize
“The Idealist is a powerful book, gorgeously written and consistently insightful. Samuel Zipp uses the 1942 world tour of Wendell Willkie to examine American attitudes toward internationalism, decolonization, and race in the febrile atmosphere of the world’s first truly global conflict.”
—Andrew Preston, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith
A dramatic account of the plane journey undertaken by businessman-turned-maverick-internationalist Wendell Willkie to rally US allies to the war effort. Willkie’s tour of a planet shrunk by aviation and war inspired him to challenge Americans to fight a rising tide of nationalism at home.
In August 1942, as the threat of fascism swept the world, a charismatic Republican presidential contender boarded the Gulliver at Mitchel Airfield for a seven-week journey around the world. Wendell Willkie covered 31,000 miles as President Roosevelt’s unofficial envoy. He visited the battlefront in North Africa with General Montgomery, debated a frosty de Gaulle in Beirut, almost failed to deliver a letter to Stalin in Moscow, and allowed himself to be seduced by Chiang Kai-shek in China. Through it all, he was struck by the insistent demands for freedom across the world.
In One World, the runaway bestseller he published on his return, Willkie challenged Americans to resist the “America first” doctrine espoused by the war’s domestic opponents and warned of the dangers of “narrow nationalism.” He urged his fellow citizens to end colonialism and embrace “equality of opportunity for every race and every nation.” With his radio broadcasts regularly drawing over 30 million listeners, he was able to reach Americans directly in their homes. His call for a more equitable and interconnected world electrified the nation, until he was silenced abruptly by a series of heart attacks in 1944. With his death, America lost its most effective globalist, the man FDR referred to as “Private Citizen Number One.”
At a time when “America first” is again a rallying cry, Willkie’s message is at once chastening and inspiring, a reminder that “one world” is more than a matter of supply chains and economics, and that racism and nationalism have long been intertwined.
“Unlike cricket, which is a polite game, Australian Rules Football creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart, usually the referee.” This is only one of the entertaining and astute observations the U.S. military provided in the pocket guides distributed to the nearly one million American soldiers who landed on the shores of Australia between 1942 and 1945. Although the Land Down Under felt more familiar than many of their assignments abroad, American GIs still needed help navigating the distinctly different Aussie culture, and coming to their rescue was Instruction for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942. The newest entry in the Bodleian Library’s bestselling series of vintage pocket guides, this pamphlet is filled with pithy notes on Australian customs, language, and other cultural facts the military deemed necessary for every American soldier.
From the native wildlife—a land of “funny animals”—to the nation’s colonial history to the general characteristics of Australians—“an outdoors sort of people, breezy and very democratic”—Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia gives a concise yet amazingly informative overview of the island nation. Regarding Aussie slang, it notes that “the Australian has few equals in the world at swearing. . . . The commonest swear words are ‘bastard’ (pronounced ‘barstud’), ‘bugger,’ and ‘bloody,’ and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly every other word.” The pamphlet also contains a humorous explanation of the country’s musical traditions—including an annotated text of “Waltzing Matilda”—as well as amusing passages on sports, politics, and the Aussies’ attitudes toward Yanks and Brits.
A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern hemisphere, Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942 follows its successful predecessors as a captivating historical document of a pivotal era in history.
Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir in France. Eich, Richter, and Böll in Germany. Pavese, Levi, and Silone in Italy. These are among the defenders of human dignity whose lives and work are explored in this widely encompassing work. James D. Wilkinson examines for the first time the cultural impact of the anti-Fascist literary movements in Europe and the search of intellectuals for renewal—for social change through moral endeavor—during World War II and its immediate aftermath.
It was a period of hope, Wilkinson asserts, and not of despair as is so frequently assumed. Out of the shattering experience of war evolved the bracing experience of resistance and a reaffirmation of faith in reason. Wilkinson discovers a spiritual revolution taking place during these years of engagement and views the participants, the engagés, as heirs of the Enlightenment. Drawing on a wide range of published writing as well as interviews with many intellectuals who were active during the 1940s, Wilkinson explains in the fullest context ever attempted their shared opposition to tyranny during the war and their commitment to individual freedom and social justice afterward.
Wilkinson has written a cultural history for our time. His wise and subtle understanding of the long-range significance of the engages is a reminder that the reassertion of humanist values is as important as political activism by intellectuals.
No story of World War II is more triumphant than the liberation of France, made famous in countless photos of Parisians waving American flags and kissing GIs as columns of troops paraded down the Champs Élysées. But one of the least-known stories from that era is also one of the ugliest chapters in the history of Jim Crow. In The Interpreter, celebrated author Alice Kaplan recovers this story both as eyewitnesses first saw it, and as it still haunts us today.
The American Army executed 70 of its own soldiers between 1943 and 1946—almost all of them black, in an army that was overwhelmingly white. Through the French interpreter Louis Guilloux’s eyes, Kaplan narrates two different trials: one of a white officer, one of a black soldier, both accused of murder. Both were court-martialed in the same room, yet the outcomes could not have been more different.
Kaplan’s insight into character and setting creates an indelible portrait of war, race relations, and the dangers of capital punishment.
“A nuanced historical account that resonates with today’s controversies over race and capital punishment.” Publishers Weekly
“American racism could become deadly for black soldiers on the front. The Interpreter reminds us of this sad component of a heroic chapter in American military history.” Los Angeles Times
“With elegance and lucidity, Kaplan revisits these two trials and reveals an appallingly separate and unequal wartime U.S. military justice system.” Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Kaplan has produced a compelling look at the racial disparities as they were played out…She explores both cases in considerable and vivid detail.” Sacramento Bee
The True Story of the Daring Attempt to Cripple Nazi Germany's Oil Production
A detailed and vivid account of the World War II disaster."—Booklist
"Into the Fire shimmers with historical parallels and modern resonances. . . . Schultz combed an impressive body of material for this account." —Washington Times
"This bittersweet tale of arrogance, wishful thinking, sacrifice, and heroism is recounted with grace and empathy." —Military.com
"Schultz combines a historian's meticulous research and a novelist's hypnotic prose to produce this memorable popular history... Shultz's intimate account of this controversial episode is a timely reminder of the horrors of war and a moving tribute to Ploestl's heroes." —Publishers Weekly
"We knew it was a disaster and knew that in the flames shooting up from those refineries we might be burned to death. But we went right in." —Lt. Norman Whalen
"We were dragged through the mouth of hell."—from a Ploesti Mission debriefing report
Planned by Winston Churchill, authorized by Dwight D. Eisenhower, and executed by five specially trained American bomber units, the attack on the oil refineries of Ploesti, Romania, was among the most daring and dangerous missions of World War II. If the raid succeeded, the Nazi war machine would suffer a devastating blow. On August 1, 1943, nearly two hundred B-24 bombers flew from Benghazi, North Africa, with directions to descend on Ploesti at treetop level, bomb the refineries, and return. The low-level bombers could evade enemy radar and were thought to be more difficult to shoot down. But despite warnings that a German heavy flak train had been moved into the area and that the secrecy of their mission had been compromised, the bombers were sent out. Minutes from the target, one of the commanders made a wrong turn, leading the formations away from Ploesti. Recovering from this mistake, most of the bombers relocated the refineries, but the mission was doomed. The ensuing air-ground battle claimed dozens of the bombers, and many of those that survived the ordeal were forced to ditch in the ocean or in remote areas due to lack of fuel or structural damage.
In Into the Fire: Ploesti, The Most Fateful Mission of World War II, Duane Schultz re-creates this great battle, combining original research and interviews with survivors in order to capture the tension, drama, and heroics of the warring sides. More Medals of Honor were awarded for this mission than any other aerial combat enterprise in the history of the United States. But the medals are bittersweet testimony to the courage of the 1,726 young men who risked all on a fateful attempt to cut off the Nazi supply of "black gold."
Winner of the Ernst Fraenkel Prize, Wiener Holocaust Library
An Open Letters Monthly Best History Book of the Year
A New York Post “Must-Read”
In the most crucial phase of the Second World War, German troops confronted the Allies across lands largely populated by Muslims. Nazi officials saw Islam as a powerful force with the same enemies as Germany: the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Jews. Islam and Nazi Germany’s War is the first comprehensive account of Berlin’s remarkably ambitious attempts to build an alliance with the Islamic world.
“Motadel describes the Mufti’s Nazi dealings vividly…Impeccably researched and clearly written, [his] book will transform our understanding of the Nazi policies that were, Motadel writes, some ‘of the most vigorous attempts to politicize and instrumentalize Islam in modern history.’”
—Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal
“Motadel’s treatment of an unsavory segment of modern Muslim history is as revealing as it is nuanced. Its strength lies not just in its erudite account of the Nazi perception of Islam but also in illustrating how the Allies used exactly the same tactics to rally Muslims against Hitler. With the specter of Isis haunting the world, it contains lessons from history we all need to learn.”
—Ziauddin Sardar, The Independent
A First Hand Contemporary Account of the Guadalcanal Campaign
“This is the real story, soberly, honestly, authoritatively told.”—New York Times
“This is a tale of dogged resistance, courage and sacrifice that will remain imperishable in our history.” —Weekly Book Review
In August 1942, U.S. Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific and defeated Japanese forces for the first time, turning the tide of World War II against Japan. Written by a historian who fought alongside his fellow Marines for the entire four-month campaign, The Island is an indispensable story of this hard-fought victory.
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