WWII In Photos A Retrospective in 20 Parts by Alan Taylor Originally published in TheAtlantic.com Linked courtesy of the Polish Arts Club of Trenton
World War II is the story of the 20th Century. The war officially lasted from 1939 until 1945, but the causes of the conflict and its horrible aftermath echoed for decades in both directions. While feats of bravery and technological breakthroughs still inspire awe today, the majority of the war was dominated by unimaginable misery and destruction. In the late 1930s, the global population stood at approximately 2 billion. In less than a decade, the war between the nations of the Axis Powers and the Allies resulted in some 80 million deaths -- killing off about 4 percent of the whole world. This series of entries was published weekly on TheAtlantic.com from June 19 through October 30, 2011, running every Sunday morning for 20 weeks. In this collection of 900 photos spread over 20 essays, Alan Taylor tried to explore the events of the war, the lives of the people fighting at the front and working back home, and the effects of the trauma on everyday activity. These images still give us glimpses into the experiences of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents, moments that shaped the world as it is today.
	Before the War	The Invasion of Poland and the Winter War
Axis Invasions and the Fall of France	The Battle of Britain	Conflict Spreads Around the Globe
Operation Barbarossa	Pearl Harbor	The American Home Front in Color
Daring Raids and Brutal Reprisals	Internment of Japanese Americans	Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Campaign
The North African Campaign	Women at War	The Eastern Front
The Pacific Islands	The Allied Invasion of Europe	The Fall of Nazi Germany
The Holocaust	The Fall of Imperial Japan	After the War