Poland betrayed -- No peace, little war -- Blitzkriegs in the west -- Norway -- The fall of France -- Britain alone -- The Mediterranean -- Mussolini gambles -- A Greek tragedy -- Sandstorms -- Barbarossa -- Moscow saved, Leningrad starved -- America embattled -- Japan's season of triumph -- "I suppose you'll shove the little men off" -- The "white route" from Burma -- Swings of fortune -- Bataan -- The Coral Sea and Midway -- Guadalcanal and New Guinea -- The British at sea -- The Atlantic -- Arctic convoys -- The ordeal of Pedestal -- The furnace: Russia in 1942 -- Living with war -- Warriors -- Home fronts -- A woman's place -- Out of Africa -- The bear turns: Russia in 1943 -- Divided empires -- Whose liberty? -- The Raj: unfinest hour -- Asian fronts -- China -- Jungle bashing and island hopping -- Italy: high hopes, sour fruits -- Sicily -- The road to Rome -- Yugoslavia -- War in the sky -- Bombers -- Targets -- Victims -- Masters and slaves -- Killing Jews -- Europe becomes a battlefield -- Japan: defying fate -- Germany besieged -- The fall of the Third Reich -- Budapest: in the eye of the storm -- Eisenhower's advance to the Elbe -- Berlin: the last battle-- Japan prostrate -- Victors and vanquished.