CHAPTER 27
The Global Crisis, 1921–1941
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Following the disillusionment of World War I, the U.S. government made the conscious decision
to avoid international commitments that might lead to involvement in another war. Never again,
Americans wanted to believe, would the United States send an army to Europe. But neither the
government nor its people could—or desired to—avoid all contact with the rest of the world. Thus
international trade continued and in some cases expanded. So did travel and cultural contacts. At
the same time, U.S. diplomats sought to ensure world peace through multinational agreements to
avoid an arms race, going even as far as to “outlaw” war in 1928. The desire to keep American
troops at home extended to this hemisphere as well. Both the Hoover and Roosevelt
administrations took steps to improve strained relations with the countries of Latin America.
Europe, however, was soon to be another matter. So was Asia. By the early 1930s, crises on both
continents were brewing as a result of aggressive actions on the part of Japan, Germany, and Italy.
The initial American response to the aggression was one of renewed commitment to isolationism.
Blatant land grabs by Japan in 1931, Italy in 1935, and Germany in 1936 were met with verbal
rebuke by the United States but little else. In the mid-1930s, Congress passed a series of Neutrality
Acts, which had the effect of denying a commitment to historic American neutral rights. Insistence
on those rights, isolationists argued, had helped push the United States into war in 1917; however,
events in the late 1930s led the Roosevelt administration to abandon this legislation.
As Axis aggression grew bolder, President Roosevelt gradually began to chip away at the
neutrality policies. He had to move cautiously, however, because the American public was not
fully supportive of this effort. Following the Japanese invasion of China, Roosevelt delivered his
“quarantine” speech, which issued a vague call on the peace-loving states to quarantine aggressor
states. Even this mild attempt at interventionism was roundly criticized by the public. Following
the start of another world war in Europe in September 1939, public attitudes shifted in alarm over
the early successes of Germany. Roosevelt felt empowered to gradually ease the United States
closer to participation in war. Programs such as “lend-lease” replaced hard-and-fast American
neutrality. All such gradual steps came to a sudden end on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese
made a surprise attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The next day the United
States declared war on Japan. A few days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United
States. Isolationism was history, and the United States entered World War II suddenly determined
and unified.
OBJECTIVES
A thorough study of Chapter 27 should enable the student to understand:
1. The extent and nature of American isolationism in the 1920s
2. The effects of World War I and the Great Depression on American foreign policy
3. The pattern of Japanese, Italian, and German aggression during the 1920s and 1930s and the
United States’ response to it
4. The factors that led to the passage of neutrality legislation in the mid-1930s and its effects on
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American foreign policy
5. The specific sequence of events that brought the United States into World War II
MAIN THEMES
1. How the United States moved during the 1920s to increase its role in world affairs, while
attempting to avoid political and military commitments
2. Why and how the United States moved toward isolationism and how it tried to legislate
neutrality in the face of mounting world crises
3. How war in Europe and Asia gradually altered the United States’ foreign policy until the
attack on Pearl Harbor finally sparked American entry into World War II
POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Explain and evaluate the objectives, means, and results of American diplomacy during the
1920s. How successful was the United States in achieving its goals? What were the
weaknesses in American foreign policy?
2. How and why did the early years of the Great Depression alter international affairs and
American diplomacy?
3. Explain the relationship between American attitudes toward World War I and the isolationist
sentiment and neutrality legislation of the 1930s. Did the neutrality laws make the United
States more or less secure? Did these laws make war in Europe more or less likely? How so?
4. How and why did American public opinion shift from favoring neutrality in 1935 to favoring
intervention in 1941? Which groups of Americans were the first to see the danger of fascism
and why? In what sense was the Spanish Civil War a “dress rehearsal” for World War II?
5. How did President Roosevelt attempt to get around neutrality legislation? Were his actions
legal? Were they justified by the events of the times? What might have happened if he had
not taken these actions?
6. Why did the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor? What did they hope to accomplish? Why was
the United States caught unprepared for the attack? How successful was the attack for Japan
in the short term? In the long term? What were the consequences of the attack in the United
States?
INTERPRETATIVE QUESTIONS
1. To what degree was isolationism a factor in the United States during the 1920s? Was the dual
policy of economic penetration and arms limitation an effective approach? Why or why not?
What might have made more sense?
2. Compare and contrast the American response to the onset of World War I and World War II.
Specifically compare Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt as leaders of a people desirous of
peace while Europe was at war.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (1998)
Warren Cohen, Empire Without Tears: America’s Foreign Relations, 1921-1933 (1987)
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Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and Isolationists, 1932-1945 (1983)
Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (1979)
Robert Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression (1970)
Irwin F. Gellman, Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 19331945 (1979)
Akira Iriye, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Vol. 3: The Globalizing of
America, 1913-1945 (1993)
_____, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (1987)
Manfred Jonas, The United States and Germany (1984)
Joseph Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill (1976)
Melvyn P. Leffler, The Elusive Quest: America’s Pursuit of European Stability and French
Security, 1919-1933 (1979)
Gordon Prange, Pearl Harbor (1986)
Lawrence Wittner, Rebels Against War (1984)
For Internet resources, practice questions, references to additional books and films, and more, see
this book’s Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/unfinishednation5.
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