In chapter 16, Howard Zinn discussed many topics and various examples of the United States engaged in foreign affairs. Of these, the most impactful being World War II, the Korean War, and the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in forty year era known as the Cold War. However, Zinn early in the chapter explicitly declares that World War II was the largest and most effecting global conflict on the United States with 18 million men in the armed forces, 10 million soldiers overseas, and 25 million domestic investors and regularly invested or donated into war bonds. The aspect of World War II (from the United States vantage point) that receives the most interest is the actual reason why the United States along with President
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The reason why Zinn’s argument is most attracting is because it disproves the American textbook argument with realistic and valid points. For example, the point in which the United States claimed it was joined the war to help defenseless nations can be easily disproved. Normally, it would not make sense for the United States to show empathy for foreign nations when it ignored the Haitian Revolution, the slave struggle domestically in the U.S., and the Armenian genocide in 1915. So why would the United States now, suddenly care for the mass extermination of Jews or the brutal and relenting invasions of minor countries by Axis war powers. Secondly, take the fact that America believed that World War II was Europe’s war and the United States should not intervene in any way. Again, it can easily be falsified. The United States before and during the war sent equipment and supplies to nations like Italy and Great Britain while also combating with Nazi U-boats around the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Finally, take the point that the United States was completely shocked by the sudden and unexpected attack from Japan on Pearl Harbor. Once again, his can be declared false. Japanese threats to American islands on the Pacific and the damaging of American markets in Peking, China caused the United States to issue an embargo on Japanese scrap iron and crude oil. In response, the Japanese attacked the United States. Therefore, the American embargo on Japan can be considered a provocation of the United States for Japan to
The reason why Zinn’s argument is most attracting is because it disproves the American textbook argument with realistic and valid points. For example, the point in which the United States claimed it was joined the war to help defenseless nations can be easily disproved. Normally, it would not make sense for the United States to show empathy for foreign nations when it ignored the Haitian Revolution, the slave struggle domestically in the U.S., and the Armenian genocide in 1915. So why would the United States now, suddenly care for the mass extermination of Jews or the brutal and relenting invasions of minor countries by Axis war powers. Secondly, take the fact that America believed that World War II was Europe’s war and the United States should not intervene in any way. Again, it can easily be falsified. The United States before and during the war sent equipment and supplies to nations like Italy and Great Britain while also combating with Nazi U-boats around the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Finally, take the point that the United States was completely shocked by the sudden and unexpected attack from Japan on Pearl Harbor. Once again, his can be declared false. Japanese threats to American islands on the Pacific and the damaging of American markets in Peking, China caused the United States to issue an embargo on Japanese scrap iron and crude oil. In response, the Japanese attacked the United States. Therefore, the American embargo on Japan can be considered a provocation of the United States for Japan to