Fulfilling the Encore Promise

Abstract

In 1939, the United States was still in the throes of the Great Depression when Britain—along with France, India, Australia, and New Zealand—declared war on Germany, in response to its attack on Poland. That was the beginning of World War II, a conflict that the United States would soon join, sparking the development and eventual deployment of the atomic bomb. It was a time of tremendous tension that fed a growing feeling of uneasiness worldwide, as well as an unprecedented sense of hopelessness and doom at home.