Great Britain and the United States on the Eve of War

On this week's episode of History Reconsidered, Sumantra Maitra and Jarrett Stepman talk about the United States and Great Britain on the eve of World War II. Stepman and Maitra explain the "America First" movement in the United States and why most Americans were adamantly opposed to war. Many Americans believed that involvement in the conflict would change the country forever, and it did.

Maitra makes a spirited defense of Neville Chamberlain, explaining that while the British statesman got some things wrong, he was not the "wimp" caricature that he's often been portrayed as. Stepman and Sumatra talk about why the British Empire had reason to be cautious about engaging in another great conflict with Germany and why the United States was the U.K.'s only hope of victory once the war began and France had been defeated.

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