How is it possible that the United States was caught so flat-footed at Pearl Harbor? Who was responsible? Was anyone responsible? Ask students to put together a plausible explanation for America's lack of preparedness. See Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (1965), and Jonathan G. Utley, Going to War with Japan, 1937-1941 (1985). One of the Problems in American Civilization Series, George M. Waller, editor, Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt and the Coming of the War (third edition; 1976), can be consulted. And there are several detailed studies of the question, such as Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (1962); Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (1981); and John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath (1992).

For many students in college and university classrooms today, World War II was their grandparents' war. What were their grandparents doing in 1944? An interesting half-hour may be spent with students discussing the answer to that question, after they have posed it to their own grandparents or other family members. There will be stories about service in Europe or in the Pacific, stories about contending with ration points and shoe shortages, stories about the WACS and the WAVES. There may also be stories told from a different perspective by students whose families were in Germany, Eastern Europe, southeast Asia, or Latin America during the Second World War. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the war and perhaps of American diversity. Have students prepare by reading Studs Terkel, The Good War: An Oral History of World War II (1984); John W. Jeffries, Wartime America: The World War II Homefront (1996); or Louis L. Snyder, editor, Masterpieces of War Reporting: The Great Moments of World War II (1962). See Robert S. La Forte and Ronald E. Marcello, editors, Remembering Pearl Harbor: Eyewitness Accounts by U.S. Military Men and Women (1991), for interesting material that also illustrates the difficulty of reconstructing memories long after the event. Students may also enjoy Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons and accompanying commentary in Up Front (1945).

Did the West lose Eastern Europe at Yalta through inept diplomacy? Or did the Yalta conference simply recognize the realities of the European situation? Ask several students to answer the question either way and provide an argument in support of their point of view. See Richard F. Fenno, Jr., editor, The Yalta Conference (1955), one of the Problems in American Civilization Series; the studies in diplomatic history by Raymond G. O'Connor and Herbert Feis cited earlier; and Diana S. Clemens, Yalta (1970).

The morality of the American use of atomic bombs at the end of World War II is an unending controversy. The instructor should define the moral question for the class. Is atomic weaponry inherently immoral? Was the bombing of Hiroshima morally different from the bombing of Dresden? Does it matter that two bombs were dropped rather than one? Should the anticipated casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of the Japanese home islands be considered in answering the question? What is the right of the matter? The chapter bibliography's section on "The Atomic Bomb" offers excellent suggestions. See also Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (1995); Robert P. Newman, Truman and the Hiroshima Cult (1995); and Robert James Maddox, Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (1995).