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    odd things like the German Army that committed to Operation Barbarossa in the East being dependent on horses and surprisingly ragtag.

A captured German officer was allowed to watch some of the massive amount of supplies being brought onshore at Omaha Beach. He asked, "Where are all the horses?"

    Germany and Japan just didn't have the industrial capacity and resources to match American power and competence in warfare – supplies, manpower, firepower.

Japan's plan was to force the US into a negotiated settlement before we could get up to speed. Yamamoto knew anything else was a loss.

    The mighty B-29 was a difference-maker in the last stages of the Pacific war.

Six hundred twenty-one US bombs were dropped from altitude at the Battle of Midway. Not a single one hit anything but water. On a side note, American torpedoes going into the war were so ineffective as to be scandalous, and the bigwigs in DC blamed the problem on the sub skippers.

    The Hellcat and Corsair were a match for the Zero when they came on line.

The Zero was supreme going into the war. A Zero weighed about the same as a modern SUV with a radial engine that produced 1020 horsepower, later 1130 HP. If you can imagine driving as SUV with over a thousand horsepower, that's what it was like handling a Zero.

      As the war went on, American industry continued high-volume production

At the end of the war, the US had over a hundred aircraft carriers.

    still suffering from the immediate trauma of the First World War – chose to tear itself apart in 1939

I hope Hanson's book doesn't begin in the thirties. The roots of WWII do back directly to the draconian punishment France insisted on dealing out to Germany at Versailles, the end of WWI. While the US and Britain looked the other way, France drove Germany into the economic ground. The French probably deserved to be overthrown and occupied by Germany and the French still haven't forgiven us for liberating them.

"The roots of WWII do back directly to the draconian punishment France insisted on dealing out to Germany at Versailles, the end of WWI."

Which was in retaliation for Prussia imposing a 5 billion franc war indemnity and taking Alsace and Lorraine from France at the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. And Prussia justified that because of the indemnity Napoleon imposed on Prussia in 1807. So, it could be said that the roots of WWII go back to Napoleon.