So, you get the picture: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, the U.S. of A loses its collective temper, and it joins WWII like it was its new favorite hobby. And then the war was over instantly, America was pleased with itself, and Europe was waving red, white, and blue flags. Hooray. Well, not quite.

Now, here's a shocker: wars never occur in isolation from the people and cultures that fight them. That means that WWII wasn't just a series of battles and military strategies—it was a massive, whole-scale event that interacted with every single facet of American culture.

And here's another shocker: one of the most important and pervasive issues in American society was race. On one hand, the war changed American perceptions of race for the better, due to the ways that African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans simultaneously fought for both their country and their human rights.

First off, the Tuskegee Airmen was an impressive unit of African-American men trained to fly planes at the Tuskegee Institute. Second, we've got the Navajo code talkers, who stepped up to the plate when the Japanese were figuring out all of our codes. The idea: just pass all of our communications in Navajo. Translate that, suckers. And third, the 442nd Regimental Combat team, a group of second-generation Japanese men mostly from Hawaii, was instrumental in many European battles.

So, in some ways, WWII saw a big leap forward in America's race relations. But on the other hand, some really giant, glaring, awful actions showed that America had taken a huge step backward.

For instance, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans saw the Japanese as their arch-memesis. Unfortunately, they didn't restrict this feeling to the Emperor and his generals. Instead, it extended to Japanese immigrants to America, and even native-born Americans of Japanese ancestry. President Roosevelt issued an executive order on the issue, and Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and relocate to concentration camps. (Yes, you heard that right.)

On top of that, it turns out our issues with gender and the roles of women also played their parts in the war. Sheesh. It's almost like war is profoundly related to social and cultural structures or something...

Anyway, women hadn't made a lot of social progress in the U.S. since the whole getting-the-vote thing happened in 1920. But then WWII started, and suddenly America was interested in employing every able-bodied adult. Even if they were girls, and probably had cooties.

Roosevelt's "Dr. Win-the-War" strategy involved banning racial and gender discrimination in the workplace, which created more job opportunities for African Americans and women. Women were encouraged through propaganda to support the war effort as mechanics, riveters, and even as mail carriers. But women weren't just holding down the home front economy during the war—they were also in the war. They might not have gunned down many enemy combatants, but women had crucial roles as support staff and nurses. 

To Americans' surprise, having women working in factories and stationed overseas meant that their old definitions of womanhood were a little...outdated. And women themselves found that they didn't necessarily want all that independence and responsibility to end once the war was over. What, next they'll be wanting equal rights or something.

So, given these incredible contributions to the war effort, nobody back home could have any doubt that people of color or people of the lesser gender deserved equal rights, could they? Oh, they totally could.

Another world war. And so soon after the first.

Let's recap: the declaration of war for World War I in 1917 came only after careful deliberation and debate—lots of it—between President Woodrow Wilson and many vocal government officials. Some of these political figures had hated the idea of U.S. involvement in foreign spats ever since the Philippine-American War. (Remember that one? Well, these guys sure did.) 

Others couldn't stomach the prospect of a partnership with imperial Russia. And still others, like Theodore Roosevelt, seemed to think the U.S. could always benefit from the excitement and glory of war. 

American public outrage over German submarine warfare encouraged Congress to vote for a declaration of war, and a revolution in Russia that overthrew the czar and established a constitutional government made the decision seem like a no-brainer. Imagine how annoyed all these guys were just a couple of months later when another revolution in Russia established a communist government. Doh.

Those who'd wanted war ultimately got their wish and President Wilson rallied his country around one goal: to make the world "safe for democracy."

But this time around, facing a new world war, the American people weren't fooled by abstract goals. What had it meant to make the world "safe for democracy" anyway? Clearly, that goal hadn't been achieved, so Americans weren't about to hold such illusions in the 1940s. 

The ultimate goal was far more urgent: to protect their civilization from destruction. The United States had been attacked—and not on a naval ship in foreign waters, but on its very own soil. And if invasion was happening all over Europe and Asia, why couldn't it happen in the U.S.?

Never before in the history of the United States had the nation so rapidly and enthusiastically mobilized its human, material, and financial resources for a single purpose. Munition plants, airfields, ship-building factories, and other wartime industries employed millions, including women and non-whites. Plus, wartime mobilization pulled the U.S. up and out of the Great Depression.

Hey, there's a good argument for WWII being the "Good War." But war doesn't always bring out the good in a nation's people. Surprise surprise. 

In the case of Japanese-American internment, concern rose over national security and public fears regarding foreign enemies, sabotage, and treason exacerbated race prejudice. In urban centers transformed by war industry, intolerance for ethnic diversity, race mixing, and alarm over rising crime rates sparked some of the century's most violent race riots. And although the nation was engaged in a war against fascism abroad, racial segregation, discrimination, and lynching continued to hinder and devastate the lives of African Americans at home.

So, the results of World War II on the American home front were all shapes and sizes. As you'll see, one result is clear: this war about "freedom"—with all its successes and its contradictions—affected the way Americans from all backgrounds viewed themselves and the society in which they lived. 

These many changes—some "good" and some not so "good"—helped set into motion a postwar era of radical social, cultural, and economic changes.