Chapter 34 Reading Questions

1. Examples of isolationism include America's lack of participation in the London Conference of 1933, which solidified both the United State's isolationist policies in war and economics alike, America's lack of response to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, the passing of the Neutrality Acts in 1935, '36, and '37, which set restrictions that Americans could not sail on a belligerent ship, sell or haul munitions, or make loans to belligerents, the lack of involvement in the Spanish Civil War, the Panay incident, where the Japanese sunk the American gunboat the Panay, and the creation of the America First Committee, with notable members such as Charles Lindbergh and e.e. cummings.

2. Moves away from isolationism include the 1937 Quarantine Speech, where FDR asked America to quarantine the aggressors (Italy and Japan) and morally condemn them, the Neutrality Act of 1939, where Congress said they could sell arms to Britain and France on a cash and carry basis, the passing of a peacetime draft law to build up the armed forces, the creation of the Committee to Defend the Allies, the Destroyer Deal, where the US transferred 50 old destroyers from WWI days to Great Britain, the passing of the Lend-Lease Bill, which said that the US could loan ships and weapons to the British, the Atlantic Conference of 1941, which saw the meeting of Churchill and FDR to set up goals for after the Allies would win the war (even though the US was still not even in the war), and finally the bombing of Peal Harbor, which destroyed any isolationist ideas.

3. The United States put an oil embargo on Japan in order to protest their actions in China, where they were beating the Chinese to forge an empire of the rising sun. Japan needed this oil to fuel the attacks and the empire, and planned to attack. American code breakers knew that the Japanese were planning to attack- however, the expected target was British Malaya or the Philippines in a secret-sabotage manner. Despite these predictions, Japan launched an all-out attack on Hawaii on December 7, 1941, making this one of the most surprising moves in history.