Between the Wars

President Woodrow Wilson's idealistic hopes for world peace through collective security clash at Versailles with the harsh old-world real-politik of E...

The ultimate failure of Woodrow Wilson destroys himself in his desperate struggle for the League of Nations. The President and the Senate fight for co...

The forces favoring peace through disarmament clash with the forces for peace through military strength. In 1921, the world's first major disarmament...

Disillusioned by the horrors of World War I, the U.S. tries to isolate herself from the rest of the world. Strict immigration quotas are imposed and a...

The Depression is a traumatic national experience which shatters U.S. self-confidence and paralyzes foreign policy, thus leading to further isolationi...

"The individual does matter in history" -- a contrast of the style of FDR and Hitler shows how technological change and individual charisma can change...

Both Hitler and Roosevelt appreciated the value of mass communications. FDR began his series of "fireside chats" to reassure and inform the people whi...

This overview of U.S.-Japanese relationships from the turn of the century until 1933 is a story of conflict. Japan emerged from World War I as a major...

From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 until the Roosevelt administration officially recognized the U.S.S.R. in the first detente in 1933, American rel...

FDR's "The Good Neighbor Policy", his greatest foreign policy success, was a key development in reversing the U.S. imperialistic attitude toward Latin...

The short-lived but brutal Italian-Ethiopian War leads to an examination of Italian Fascism, the character of Mussolini and how he came to power. Muss...

The Spanish Civil War was a microcosm of the ideological conflict of this century. When Spanish fascists under Franco rebel against the republican gov...

Hitler's assumption that England would not go to war to defend Poland triggers World War II. As the Nazis sweep over Europe and launch their air attac...

The close personal friendship between Roosevelt and Churchill had a profound effect on the history of the Western world. Roosevelt posted "lend-lease"...

In 1937 Japan was bent on establishing an empire. Encouraged by lack of Western resistance, Japan took control of French Indochina, the Dutch Indies,...

Some of the great questions that arises from WWII is: Did FDR know in advance about Pearl Harbor? Was the Japanese attack unprovoked? FDR knew that he...