Recommended Resources
World War II
The books, articles, films, and websites in this section will enhance the materials included on our website for this era of American history. Many of the books are by the historians whose essays and lectures you have read and listened to here and offer in-depth studies of the topics that have caught your interest. The websites and other resources open new ways to explore American history and take advantage of new interpretations and new technologies to enhance classroom or at-home learning.
Koistinen, Paul A. C. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
Honey, Maureen, ed. Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.
Colley, David. Blood for Dignity: The Story of the First Integrated Combat Unit in the US Army. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Lingeman, Richard R. Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front, 1941–1945. New York: Putnam, 1970.
Hooks, Gregory. Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: World War II’s Battle of the Potomac. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Winkler, Allan M. Home Front U.S.A.: America during World War II. Arlington Heights, IL: H. Davidson, 1986.
Atleson, James B. Labor and the Wartime State: Labor Relations and Law during World War II. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Kersten, Andrew Edmund. Labor’s Home Front: The American Federation of Labor during World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
Capeci, Dominic J., Jr., and Martha Wilkerson. Layered Violence: The Detroit Rioters of 1943. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1991.
Gropman, Alan L. Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality. Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1996.
Gibran, Daniel K. The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001.
Nelson, Dennis Denmark. The Integration of the Negro into the US Navy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951.
Miller, Richard E. The Messman Chronicles: African Americans in the US Navy, 1932–1943. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004.
Washburn, Patrick S. “The Pittsburgh Courier’s Double V Campaign in 1942.” American Journalism 3, no. 2 (1986): 73–86.
Jones, John Bush. The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939–1945. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 2006.
Moore, Brenda L. To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas during World War II. New York : New York University Press, 1996.
Downey, Bill. Uncle Sam Must Be Losing the War: Black Marines of the 51st. San Francisco: Strawberry Hill Press, 1982.
Putney, Martha S. When the Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992.
Recommended Resources from Other Sub-Eras
O’Neill, William L. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II. New York: Free Press, 1993.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Lawrence, Mark Atwood. Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Prange, Gordon W., with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. 60th anniversary ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Moreno, Barry. Encyclopedia of Ellis Island. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004.
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Thomas, Richard W. Life for Us Is What We Make It: Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915–1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
May, Elaine Tyler. Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940–1961. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
McMahon, Kevin J. Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.
Leuchtenburg, William Edward. The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Terkel, Studs. “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War II. New York: Pantheon Press, 1984.
LeCompte, Tom. The Last Sure Thing: The Life and Times of Bobby Riggs. Easthampton, MA: Black Squirrel Publishing, 2003.
Delbanco, Andrew. The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Keegan, John. The Second World War. New York: Viking, 1990.
Campbell, D’ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Ross, Steven J. Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.