Annihilation: A Global Military History of World War II

From 1937 to 1945 the world witnessed a succession of savage military policies, innovations, and actions on the field, in the water, and in the skies that resulted in the butchery of over fifty million people. The military history of the Second World War involves heroism and evil, effective and hopeless strategies, bold and pointless operations, calculation and luck, politics and diplomacy, and production and attrition. This study incorporates recent scholarship on the military history of the Second World War to examine both chronologically and in a comprehensive geographic way the most destructive event in recorded human history. Annihilation argues that World War II evolved into a war of annihilation - a total war - that engulfed militaries and civilians alike, and spared no country either destruction or blame for the carnage. The book questions the adopted intention of the "good war" thesis by wielding the "strategy of annihilation" on all sides as an architectural framework. Readers will find global coverage linking together all theaters of the conflict in a narrative that advances from the beginning to end of the war. This is the first study of the World War II that allows instructors to assign chapters of the book according to time periods or by place.

Tom Zeiler is a Professor of History and International Affairs, and former chair, at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he also directs the Global Studies Residential Academic Program. He serves as the executive editor of Diplomatic History and as the editor-in-chief of American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature, as well as on SHAFR's Teaching Committee and governing Council. A member of the State Department Historical Advisory Committee, Tom has lived in Buenos Aires and Tokyo as a Senior Fulbright Scholar. He is the author of six books, including one on the last half of the Pacific War, and several articles.