The Second World War was the most global war in history, yet efforts to write a global history of the conflict have been disappointing.  Global historians have generally regarded the war as a rupture in the processes of “globalization,” while historians of the Second World War have been reluctant to insert Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union within a transnational framework because of their exceptional natures. Just as important, most historians remain challenged by the war’s genuine globality, in which one of the key belligerents—Japan—was a non-Western society. I’d argue, on the contrary, that the years between 1914 and 1945 witnessed intense transnational learning about war and society among major and minor powers alike.  The global circulation of these ideas and practices culminated by the Second World War in a veritable war on civilians. It had become “normal” for nations to seek to win wars not only by defeating armies but also by destroying entire cities.  At the same time, transnational learning shaped how nations constructed “home fronts” to protect civilians while mobilizing them for the war effort.  This presentation suggests new ways of transcending nation-centered histories to tell a more global, connected story of the war.

Sheldon Garon is the Nissan Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University, and Associate Researcher, Centre d’histoire, Sciences Po, Paris. A specialist in modern Japanese history, he also writes transnational/global history.  Awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant in 2024, he currently directs the project, “The Global War on Civilians, 1905-1945.” His publications include Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (1987), Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves (2012), “On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War,” Past & Present (2020).

Please see our Code of Conduct that applies to all Global History Events: