A monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II, and its deeply personal consequences. Hastings simultaneously traces the major developments and puts them into real human context. He also explores some of the darker and less explored regions of the war's penumbra, including the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland; and the Bengal famine in 1943 and 1944.

In HOW THE STATES GOT THEIR SHAPES, Brian Unger hits the road to uncover the history hidden in our map.

The European powers, as well as the United States, seek new empires overseas. The resulting competition for colonies breeds conflict between nations that otherwise have no reason to fight, a factor that in the long run contributes to World War I.

Examine the severe effects of the First World War on India's economy. Learn how both moderate and radical nationalists responded to the war to press for concessions and independence. Explore strains in the colonial relationship exposed by the war that made India ripe for the emergence of Mohandas Gandhi.

A revived interest in the literary and historical works of classical Greece and Rome unleashes new ideas about the qualifications of a gentleman, the role of women, and the expectations of a prince - with a resulting emphasis on textual accuracy, literacy, education, and the human and practical.

The 200 years of Britain’s colonial rule of India was a time of seminal transformation and change - for India, for Britain, and for the world. In A History of British India, explore how the British took power in India, built a massive economic machine, and ruled until India’s 1947 independence. You’ll relive a crucial era in international relations, one with deep and lasting implications.

The most backward and repressive nation in Europe, terribly overmatched in the war, experiences the overthrow of both its czar and the republican government that succeeds him before suing for peace with Germany and establishing the world's first Communist government.

The Reformation splits Europe into opposing camps, producing a series of bloodbaths culminating in the Thirty Years' War, the near-bankruptcy of Spain, and the eventual conviction that perhaps religious matters are best settled peacefully.

This first lecture on World War II begins with Hitler's Blitzkrieg invasion of Poland and continues until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States.

In the face of half-hearted or partial solutions to the problems of the Industrial Revolution, Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Blake, and Shelley urge revolution, forever altering how Europeans and, later, Americans, perceive the world.