World War II Revisited

B. World War II Revisited Laurence Schiller, former Lecturer, History Tuesday afternoons, 12:45 - 2:45 p.m., Norris University Center

As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, it is important to view it in the context of the larger era of which it was an important part. Certainly one of the seminal events of the 20th century, it was not the first, nor even the second, world war in the history of mankind. An immense conflagration with battles fought from the frigid Aleutians to the tropical jungles of the Dutch East Indies and from Leningrad and Stalingrad to the deserts and mountains of Africa, this war must be understood in the context of how world history unfolded from the mid - 19th century up to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. This class will examine the causes, events, and results of this war while trying to put it into the larger context of the huge changes occurring throughout the world: capitalism, communism, fascism, imperialism, colonialism, and the evolution of technology, which remade societies all over the globe.