Book excerpt: How World War II changed America and the World In Mighty Endeavor: The American Nation and the Second World War historian Blaine Browne provides a highly readable introduction to the war’s military course and its domestic consequences. World War II represented a major transformative event for America, laying the foundations for a modern postwar superpower. Browne chronicles the political, diplomatic, military, economic, and social developments from the end of World War I to the Cold War and economic boom of the postwar years. Each chapter features opening and closing biographies of individuals, some famous, some forgotten, who helped shape the war effort. The profiles represent a wide variety of Americans, civilian and military, men and women, and representing diverse races and ethnicities. Readers who recall the war years to those students studying it for the first time will find The Mighty Endeavor a superb gateway to a pivotal period of American and world history.