Historians have long recognized the role of economic resources and organization in determining the outcome of World War II. There was never any doubt that the economic resources of the U. S. overwhelmed those of Japan, and regarding the war against Germany a powerful case assembled by Harrison (1998), Overy (1994), and many others has argued that the Nazi economy lacked the economic resources and organization to oppose the combined might of the U. S., U. K., and U. S. S. R. A minority view disputes the primacy of economics in defeating the Germans by pointing to Hitler’s many strategic and tactical mistakes, of which the most important was invading the U. S. S. R. Among the more persuasive counterfactual scenarios about the German war as a whole are those developed by Alexander (2000) and Tsouras (2006), while many other books examine alternative outcomes of particular phases of the war, e.g., a hypothetical German invasion of the U. K. or defeat of the Allies at D‐Day. A strong case for the legitimacy of counterfactual history is made by Ferguson (1999). While the role of economics and of Hitler’s mistakes in determining the war’s outcome has been examined extensively, less attention has been paid to economics as a cause of German aggression. This review article of Adam Tooze’s (2006) ambitious economic history of the Nazi regime finds the author’s most significant contribution to lie in his intricate account of the prewar weakness of the German agricultural sector as a motivation for Hitler’s determination to expand to the east. Hitler was paranoid about the land‐starved backwardness of German agriculture as contrasted with the raw material and land resources of America’s continent and Britain’s empire. ”Land hunger was one, if not the most important impulse” (p. 166). The American frontier expansion that
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obliterated the native Indians provided Hitler with a explicit precedent, which he ...