World War II: A Military and Social History

Fifty-five million people died in the Second World War, the greatest conflict in human history. Fifty years later, these lectures ask and answer important questions about this war: * Might Hitler have been stopped sooner? * Should Roosevelt have foreseen Pearl Harbor? * Could more lives have been saved as the Holocaust became known? * Did Truman have to use the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? * Did the Allies come closer to losing World War II than we would like to think? The origins and expansion of the war in Europe and the Pacific are examined. Military and political strategies and failures are analyzed. Social and economic effects of the war are assessed.