From Isolation to War

Justus D. Doenecke is Professor Emeritus of History at the New College of Florida. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America's Entry Into World War I (2011), Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt's Foreign Policies, 1933-1945 (2005 with Mark A. Stoler), and Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939-1941 (2003) which was awarded the annual Herbert Hoover Book Award from the Hoover Presidential Library Association as the best book on any topic of American History within the years 1914-1964. The late John E. Wilz was professor of history at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a member of the history faculty from 1958 until his death in 1994. Over the years he served as a mentor to many young historians, and he was the author of numerous books, including In Search for Peace: The Senate Munitions Inquiry, 1934-36 (1963).

Preface ix

1 In Search of Peace 1

The Roots of Anti-Interventionism 4

The Disillusionment of the 1920s 7

A Rising Peace Sentiment 13

2 Manchuria 19

The Rise of Imperial Japan 21

Japan Attacks Manchuria 34

The Failure of American Protest 48

3 The Dilemmas of Neutrality 58

Early New Deal Diplomacy 60

The Nye Committee 73

The Spanish Civil War 82

Japan's "China Incident" 90

The Panay Sinking 97

4 Toward War in Europe 105

Prelude to the European War 106

Germany Conquers Western Europe 118

The Destroyer-Bases Deal 128

The Nature of the Axis Threat 137

From H.R. 1776 to the Newfoundland Conference 140

The Undeclared Naval War 154

5 Toward War in the Pacific 163

America Debates Japan's Advances 164

FDR's Freezing Orders 178

Faltering Diplomacy 187

Pacific Diplomacy Evaluated 203

6 Day of Infamy 209

Pearl Harbor Attacked 211

The Revisionist Case Evaluated 220

Germany Declares War on the United States 231

Bibliographical Essay 234

Author Index 261

Subject Index 267

Maps: Manchuria, 1932 20

Europe, 1939 110–111

Western Pacific, 1941 168–169