This is a simplified, easy to read overview of America’s involvement in World War II. The pluses of the book include an index, timeline, glossary of terms (by chapter), short chapters, many photographs, and a visually interesting lay out.  The minuses are that it is too simplistic to be a serious reference source. In the chapter ‘America at War’, there is no mention of the war’s affects at home: there is no mention of rationing, women working on the bomber assembly lines, and no mention of the Japanese internment camps.  In ‘Weapons of War’ there is no mention of the bombing of Dresden and other devastation caused by these new weapons. In ‘War in the Pacific’ the Bataan Death March is not mentioned by name, and there is no reference to the large number of U.S. casualties at Iwo Jima. The ‘D-Day’ chapter also fails to mention the U.S. casualties suffered in that invasion. ‘Victory’ shows a sanitized photo of post-atomic bomb Hiroshima.

Overall, this book is too simplified and short on key elements of the affect of America’s involvement in World War II for it to be of much help to students doing anything but the most cursory review of WW II.