Vital Crossroads: Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War, 1935–1940 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) - Hardcover

Salerno, Reynolds M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801437725 ISBN 13: 9780801437724

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Most international historians present the outbreak of World War II as the result of an irreconcilable conflict between Great Britain and Germany. This ubiquitous Anglo-German perspective fails to recognize complex causes and repercussions of international events, misappropriates historical responsibilities, and overlooks many global and imperial factors of the war's origins. Reynolds M. Salerno shows that the situation in the Mediterranean played a decisive role in the European drama of the late 1930s and profoundly influenced the manner in which the Second World War unfolded. Vital Crossroads is the result of the author's remarkable access to and extensive research in twenty-eight archives in five different countries.

Concentrating on the period from the Mediterranean crisis of 1935 to Italy's declaration of war in June 1940, Salerno demonstrates that the international politics of pre-World War II Europe―particularly in the Mediterranean―can only be understood as the multilateral interaction of British, French, German, and Italian foreign and defense policies. Control of the Mediterranean, he asserts, was a central concern for the European powers in 1935–40, and a fundamental reason why Europe went to war and why the conflict unfolded as it did. As a result, France and Italy influenced and often determined the nature and direction of Allied and Axis policy to an extent disproportionate to their nations' military and economic strength.

Salerno contends that the Allies' reluctance to take decisive action against Fascist Italy in 1939–40 contributed to the fall of France in 1940, Britain's desperate situation in 1940–41, and the post-war collapse of Britain as a world power. At a time when the Allied powers dreaded the ability of the German military to march across the European continent, they also feared that the Italian armed forces would strive to fulfill Mussolini's grand imperial ambitions in the Mediterranean.

About this title

About the Author

Reynolds M. Salerno is Manager of Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation at Sandia National Laboratories. He received his Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 1997.

Review

"Reynolds M. Salerno works extensively from French and Italian archival material that has been relatively little used by historians who write primarily in English. The point of view expressed in Vital Crossroads is often different and sometimes provocative."

(Paul G. Halpern, Florida State University)

"This excellent book effectively counters those who seek to rehabilitate the reputation of Chamberlain or who attempt to raise Mussolini from a self-deluded thug to the level of European statesman."

(Alexander De Grand, North Carolina State University. International History Review, June 2003.)

"Reynolds Salerno has demonstrated that Anglo-French thinking regarding the European continent was always influenced by their assumptions concerning Italian aims in the Mediterranean and how Italy could affect their own interests in that region, on which a lengthy global war would depend. Vital Crossroads is based on an exhaustive reading of British, French, and Italian diplomatic, military, and naval records. It does not provide singular arguments so much as an enriched perspective, but as such, it is an important and welcome study."

(Norman Goda, Ohio University, Athens. Military History Vol. 67:3, July 2003)

"Salerno's study is a significant step forward in the effort to make works of international history just that―international. Perhaps his greatest success is to demonstrate just how much a truly international study can tell us about the international system."

(Andrew Barros, University of Quebec, H-France Book Reviews, Sept. 2003)

"Reynolds Salerno reminds us how, in the late 1930s, Benito Mussolini extended the theater of conflict from Europe to North Africa, notwithstanding the fact that Italy didn't enter the war till nine months later."

(Tim Boxer, 16 Minutes Magazine, 6/20/03.)

"Vital Crossroads is a remarkable piece of work, one that broadens and deepens our understanding of the origins of the Second World War in very significant ways. The subject Salerno tackles is complex and multifaceted. Drawing on an extraordinary range of source materials, he pulls the different elements of the story together effectively and elegantly."

(Marc Trachtenberg, University of California Los Angeles)

"Drawing on an impressive array of materials, Salerno argues that Mussolini's actions effectively drove a wedge between Britain and France, the former pushing relentlessly for appeasement of Italy at French expense, the latter, with some exceptions, urging a tough line toward the Duce. These are important arguments; more controversial will be Salerno's insistence that contradictory interpretations of the Italian threat paralyzed British and French efforts to resist Hitler.... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above."

(Choice, April 2003, Vol. 40, No. 8)

"This is the way international history should be written. Using a wide variety of multinational archives, Salerno throws a powerful and penetrating light on the way in which the Anglo-French-Italian rivalry in the Mediterranean led to the outbreak and spread of the Second World War."

(Zara Steiner, Emeritus Fellow, New Hall, Cambridge University)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0801437725
• ISBN 13: 9780801437724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312