"PRELUDE TO CONFLICT" asks why it was allowed to happen and finds the weakness of states created at Versailles, change in Russia, the delusions of grandeur of a poor and humiliated Germany, rise of European dictators and Japanese militarism as a result of world economic depression to be the main causes. It also asks "why did the democracies fail to act?" - because of cost of rearming; Nazi Germany as bulwark against Communism; sick of war.

"TRIUMPH OF THE AXIS" traces events up to the beginning of 1942 when Axis powers controlled much of Europe and the Far East. Hitler is represented as having worked to a "master plan".

"ALLIED VICTORY" traces the course of the war from 1942 up to the Japanese surrender - from the conversion of the USA into a "mighty arsenal" for the Allies, through differences at Yalta to the use of the A-bomb which "probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives". The war itself created new problems.

A three part outline of the Second World War.