{"product_id":"9781572338722","title":"Arming the Nation for War: Mobilization, Supply, and the American War Effort in World War II","description":"\u003cbr\u003eA decorated World War I veteran, Federal Judge Robert P. Patterson knew all too well the\u003cbr\u003e needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was thus dismayed by America’s lack of military\u003cbr\u003e preparedness when a second great war engulfed Europe in 1939–40. With the international\u003cbr\u003e crisis worsening, Patterson even resumed military training—as a forty-nine-yearold\u003cbr\u003e private—before being named assistant secretary of war in July 1940. That appointment\u003cbr\u003e set the stage for Patterson’s central role in the country’s massive mobilization and\u003cbr\u003e supply effort which helped the Allies win World War II.\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eArming the Nation for War\u003c\/i\u003e, a previously unpublished account long buried among\u003cbr\u003e the late author’s papers and originally marked confidential, Patterson describes the vast\u003cbr\u003e challenges the United States faced as it had to equip, in a desperately short time, a fighting\u003cbr\u003e force capable of confronting a formidable enemy. Brimming with data and detail, the book\u003cbr\u003e also abounds with deep insights into the myriad problems encountered on the domestic\u003cbr\u003e mobilization front—including the sometimes divergent interests of wartime planners and\u003cbr\u003e industrial leaders—along with the logistical difficulties of supplying far-flung theaters of\u003cbr\u003e war with everything from ships, planes, and tanks to food and medicine. Determined to\u003cbr\u003e remind his contemporaries of how narrow the Allied margin of victory was and that the\u003cbr\u003e war’s lessons not be forgotten, Patterson clearly intended the manuscript (which he wrote\u003cbr\u003e between 1945 and ’47, when he was President Truman’s secretary of war) to contribute\u003cbr\u003e to the postwar debates on the future of the military establishment. That passage of the\u003cbr\u003e National Security Act of 1947, to which Patterson was a key contributor, answered many of\u003cbr\u003e his concerns may explain why he never published the book during his lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA unique document offering an insider’s view of a watershed historical moment, Patterson’s\u003cbr\u003e text is complemented by editor Brian Waddell’s extensive introduction and notes.\u003cbr\u003e In addition, Robert M. Morgenthau, former Manhattan district attorney and a protégé of\u003cbr\u003e Patterson’s for four years prior to the latter’s death in a 1952 plane crash, offers a heartfelt\u003cbr\u003e remembrance of a man the \u003ci\u003eNew York Herald-Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e called “an example of the public-spirited\u003cbr\u003e citizen.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Tennessee Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47054844035312,"sku":"9781572338722","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781572338722_p0.jpg?v=1763795500","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781572338722","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}