The Great Game of World War II

In the brutal historical chapter of World War II, the confrontation between good and evil among the Allies and the Axis has long since settled into the past. Yet the turmoil and intrigue behind those turbulent years remain little known. How did Chamberlain and Churchill each try to preserve the declining British Empire? How did Germany, defeated in World War I, regain room to survive under Stresemann’s masterful leadership, only to head toward destruction under Hitler? Was France’s Maginot Line really entirely useless? Could Italy’s World War II campaign, strong in appearance but weak within, have taken a different course? Why did Japan bring about its own downfall through infighting within the military? How did the Soviet Union reshape the geopolitical map of Eurasia through “Stalinist strategy”? How did the United States assess the situation, enter the war, and win global hegemony? ... Renowned young scholar Wang Dingjie offers a distinctive interpretation.