A military and social history

The story of fifteen years of history of the 20th Century, covering the 1930s, the declaration of war in 1939, the war years and the ending in 1945. Based on the British series ‘ World at War’ created in 1973 with narration by Laurence Olivier and an American University series, WWII, it covers not only here in Britain and Europe but Asia and Africa. Not just the events but music and social life, including extracts from Pathé News.

The lectures examine the greatest conflict in human history, the Second World War. Between 1937 and 1945 approximately 55 million people perished in this series of interrelated conflicts. No continent was left untouched, no ocean or sea unaffected. The war fundamentally altered the international system, leading to the eclipse of Europe and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers. It ushered in the atomic age and produced, in Auschwitz and elsewhere, the most grisly crimes ever committed in the long course of Western civilisation.

It set the stage for the Cold War, and it accelerated or, in some cases ignited, movements for national liberation around the world, prompting the rollback of Europe’s colonial empires. In short, the Second World War has defined an entire epoch in human history, an epoch from which we have emerged.

The course is divided into 7 parts, each part consisting of several sessions, will include DVD based lectures and documentary films, a timeline of events and other stories from the time.

• Part 1 - 1930s and the build up to war
• Part 2 - The Early Years of War
• Part 3 - The War in Asia
• Part 4 - The War in North Africa
• Part 5 -The Long Years
• Part 6 - Towards Victory
• Part 7 - Aftermath of the end of War

The course will start in October 2025.