Historical Dictionary of the 1940s - Hardcover

Each entry "quickly defines" its subject, then points to three resources for additional information. The entries vary in length from a short paragraph to two columns. Topics vary greatly, from West Virginia v. Barnette, a 1943 Supreme Court case involving freedom of speech and the First Amendment; to Midway, Battle of; to Lawrence Welk.issing are entries for the atomic bomb and J. Robert Oppenheimer, although information on them can be located through the index. The index is particularly important because it's the only place the reader will find see also references.

A chronology follows the main entries and is followed in turn by 18 appendixes containing documents such as "Text of the Yalta Conference Agreement," "Benito Mussolini's War Statement," and "President Harry Truman's Inaugural Address." A brief bibliography lists general works.

The only historical dictionary devoted exclusively to the 1940s, the book attempts to distinguish itself by treating "as a unified era a decade that historians typically bifurcate into the separate categories, 'World War II' and 'the Cold War.'" Though much of the information it contains can be found in other reference sources, from American Decades, 1940-1949 (Gale, 1995) to The Encyclopedia of World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2004), Historical Dictionary of the 1940s is a convenient starting point for further research and a worthwhile addition to public and academic libraries. Carol Sue Harless
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