I'm hoping I'm in the right place for this.
I'm in a Historiography class this semester to prep me for my Senior thesis as an undergrad. We needed to choose a topic and the historiography behind said topic and I chose the Causes of World War II. I'm pretty well acquainted to JStor as that's what I've been primarily using over the years but I've seem to have hit a bit of a road block. Could anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you!
Before a more in-depth answer comes, I suggest A. J. P. Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War and the controversy surrounding his thesis. Plenty has been written about it:
*A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961; 2nd ed. 1963).
*Esmonde Robertson (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1971).
*William Roger Louis (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War: A.J.P. Taylor and His Critics (New York and Toronto: Wiley, 1972).
*Gordon Martel (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986; 2nd ed., 1999).
Not directly concerned with Taylor's thesis but also helpful will be:
*Robert Boyce and Esmonde Robertson (eds.), Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War (London: St. Martin's Press, 1989).
*Robert Boyce and Joseph Maiolo (eds.), The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
Part of the problem you are going to encounter is that there is no debate about the origins of World War II, so there won't be much written on it outside of general survey histories, which are not good sources for a historiography paper. World War II started because the Nazis attacked Poland. The events that led up to that attack are well known and documented. Hitler's plan to start an offensive war to conquer territory in Eastern Europe is well documented as well. As such, you're unlikely to find any scholars who are in dialogue with each other regarding the origins of the war.
To be perfectly honest, I would pick a different (more specific) topic. It can still be WWII related, but the origins topic is not a terribly good one under the circumstances. Alternatively, if you want to write a paper that is about a large topic that is suited for historiography extremely well, look at the French Revolution, specifically the origins of the revolution or the place of the terror within the whole. There have been at least four separate generations of historians who have advanced specific ideas that can easily be grouped together. It's an easy topic that will give you the idea behind historiography and how (and why) historians change their minds about historical evidence.