Michael M. Postan

“ Like all the other volumes in the civil histories this volume is based on a vast mass of original material. Most writers of individual volumes in civil histories have found their documentation voluminous to the point of being overwhelming. How much more voluminous and overwhelming must then be the documentation of a volume covering the entire field of war production and based upon the records of four Government departments and a large number of industrial undertakings! ”

“ With the country in the midst of another effort of rearmament the interests of security demand that some topics should be eschewed altogether and that others should be cast in a form less specific than that which had at first been intended for them. Thus, the whole of the projected chapter on the quality of weapons, dealing with the problems of design, development, research and innovation has been scrapped. ”

“ The present volume has been designed to introduce a series. In his preface to British War Economy Professor Hancock, the General Editor of the Civil Histories of the War, made it clear that the studies concerned with war industry and with the four supply ministries would from a self-contained group of volumes, a series within a larger series. The plan of the war-production histories, which was announced at about the same time, was perhaps more ambitious than the books which are now taking shape. But the general composition of the series has not been much altered. ”