Overview

Why did so many leaders insist the world wanted peace while factories quietly retooled for tanks, bombers and submarines? How did careful language, creative finance and technical innovation turn the 1930s into a decade of hidden acceleration towards disaster? This book follows the 1930s arms race from the inside out, tracing how German rearmament unfolded through workarounds, front companies, and Mefo bills. Readers are taken into cabinet rooms, design bureaus and dockyards to see how the supposed peace of the interwar years rested on fragile assumptions. It shows how military technology evolved unevenly during the interwar period, why some governments hesitated, and how others pushed ahead. Across its chapters, the narrative connects the origins of World War 2 to choices about budgets, treaties, and radar masts along cold coastlines. It explains the financing of Meffo bills in plain language, unpacks radar development in Britain, and follows the collapse of the limits that once promised stability under naval treaties. Along the way, it examines U-boat warfare history and Allied rearmament debates to show why democracies struggled to match authoritarian speed. For readers of serious history who want more than battles and personalities, this book offers a clear mental model of how weapons, money and ideas interact. It shows how weapons before World War I can shape the conflicts that follow, and invites readers to recognise early warning signs when technology and fear begin to outrun diplomacy.

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9789347436314

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Jonas Merakai writes about how wars are shaped long before the shooting starts, in factories, ministries and back rooms. His work follows the intersections of military history, economic policy and technology, tracing how ideas on paper become steel, concrete and doctrine. He has spent years studying the interwar period, where treaties promised peace while rearmament quietly gathered speed. Growing up near former industrial sites that once supplied twentieth century conflicts, he became fascinated by the ordinary landscapes that still carry the imprint of those choices. His writing aims to make complex systems legible without losing sight of human responsibility. By weaving together case studies, archival material in translation and accessible narrative, he invites readers to see arms races as the product of decisions that could have gone differently. His broader project is to help readers recognise early warning signs when technology, money and security fears begin to pull societies towards confrontation.

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