Global Great Depression and the Coming of World War II

Description: This book demonstrates the ways in which the economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s helped to cause and shape World War II. John Moser points to the essential uniformity in the way in which the world's industrialized and industrializing nations responded to the challenge of the Depression. They had much in common, but there was still a great divide between two different general approaches to the economic crisis. This interplay of powers constituted the international dynamic of the 1930s: "have-nots" attempting to achieve self-sufficiency through aggressive means, challenging "haves" that mistrusted one another and failed to work cooperatively in an effort to stop them.

Review Quotes:

"With this bold and far-reaching interpretation of the economic interplay and its political consequences among the world's great powers during the first half of the twentieth century, John Moser takes his place alongside such eminences as Charles Kindleberger and Barry Eichengreen. He has given us a landmark work in international history."
-- Alonzo L. Hamby, Distinguished Professor of History, Ohio University, and author of For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s

"The thesis of this book is that the 'global great depression' between the wars turned several major powers decisively against liberal capitalism as well as socialism and toward imperialistic 'third way' policies, which led to the breakdown of international order and the onset of the Second World War. This is a provocative claim and one that is likely to attract wide interest in view of the continuing fascination with the Second World War and the relative paucity of book-length studies that focus upon economic origins. The author's clear, concise, non-technical English makes this potentially rebarbative topic accessible to a broad range of potential readers and his wide-ranging study displays maturity and balance."
-- Robert Boyce, London School of Economics and author of The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization