World War II: A Military and Social History

Between 1937 and 1945, approximately 55 million people perished in the series of interrelated conflicts known as the Second World War. No continent was left untouched, no ocean unaffected. The war led to the eclipse of Europe and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers; ushered in the atomic age; produced, in the Holocaust, the most horrific crime ever committed in the history of Western civilization, and led to the end of Europe's colonial empires around the world. But though World War II defined an entire epoch in human history, pressing questions remain - about whether Hitler could have been stopped earlier, about Pearl Harbor, about saving more people from the Holocaust, about using the atomic bomb, and even about how close the Allies came to actually losing. This engaging series of 30 lectures is rich in detail and near-cinematic portraits of leaders and events. It explores not only the origins of the war, including the impact of the Treaty of Versailles, but also how it unfolded on both battlefront and the American home front, with focused looks at key subjects like Nazism and the Holocaust and the philosophy of strategic bombing and its impact on the future nature of warfare.

All Lectures:
1. The Origins of the Second World War
2. Hitler's Challenge to the International System, 1933–1936
3. The Failure of the International System
4. The Coming of War
5. Blitzkrieg
6. The German Offensive in the West
7. "Their Finest Hour" - Britain Alone
8. The Battle of Britain
9. Hitler Moves East
10. The Germans Before Moscow
11. The War in Asia
12. The Japanese Gamble
13. The Height of Japanese Power
14. Turning the Tide in the Pacific - Midway and Guadalcanal
15. The War in North Africa
16. War in the Mediterranean - The Invasions of Sicily and Italy
17. Stalingrad - The Turning Point on the Eastern Front
18. Eisenhower and Operation Overlord
19. D-Day to Paris
20. Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge
21. Advance Across the Pacific
22. Turning Point in the Southwest Pacific - Leyte Gulf and the Philippines
23. The Final Drive for Japan - Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Fire-Bombing of Tokyo
24. War in the Air
25. Hitler's New Order in Europe
26. "The Man's Army"
27. Daily Life, Culture, and Society in Wartime
28. The Race for Berlin
29. Truman, the Bomb, and the End of the War in the Pacific
30. The Costs of War