Week 6 Discussion 2: World War II

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapter 27
• Lesson
• Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook)

Initial Post Instructions
For the initial post, consider three (3) of the following events:

• Treaty of Versailles
• Rise of fascism, militarism and imperialism
• Failure of the League of Nations
• Hitler and the Nazi Party
• The Lend Lease Act
• Japanese expansion and the bombing of Pearl Harbor

Then, address the following and craft a response as a whole for your selections:

• Assess if the United States foreign policy during the 1930s helped to promote World War II. Could the United States have prevented the outbreak of World War II? If so, how? If not, why not?
• Explain if the United States, despite neutrality, aided the Allies against the Axis powers.
• Analyze if the use of atomic (nuclear) weapons to defeat enemies in war is a setback for democracy (President Truman's decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan).

Writing Requirements

• Minimum of 3 posts (1 initial & 2 follow-up)
• APA format for in-text citations and list of references

Professor's comment: Welcome to this discussion, which begins Oct. 7.

World War II has been called the largest event in human history (Keegan, 1989, p. 3). Let’s talk about how this terrible war began, and how the United States was drawn in.

Do any of you have relatives that were in uniform in this time? Or worked in factories or elsewhere on the home front? Feel free to share, and if you have an old picture, so much the better!

For this discussion, you’ll be selecting three of the following for your discussion:

Treaty of Versailles

Rise of fascism, militarism and imperialism

Failure of the League of Nations

Hitler and the Nazi Party

The Lend Lease Act

Japanese expansion and the bombing of Pearl Harbor

Please interact with the text and lesson, and any other authoritative sources you may find. Thanks!

Reference

Keegan, J. (1989). The Second World War. New York, NY: Penguin Books.