This course examines the Second World War in its global context.
It emphasizes the comprehensive impact of warfare not only on the battlefield but also on the intellectual, cultural, and political life of belligerent states, above all Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States.
It attends to everyday life during the war, to the experience of women and children, and to the “barbarization of warfare” that led to the enslavement, murder, and genocide of millions of non-combatants.
It addresses, finally, developments that portended the division of Europe and the world after 1945.
