Consider the events explored, explained, and connected by this course.

Three lifetimes ago, Europe was a farming society ruled by families of monarchs:

• In one life, England became an industrial power; thousands were guillotined in France; Napoleon’s Empire rose and fell; and revolution swept Europe.
• In one more lifetime, Italy and Germany were created from a collection of city-states; European powers conquered Africa; and millions died in a Great War.
• And in a third lifetime, the world plunged into economic depression, global war, and genocide; Europe abandoned its African colonies; the Soviet Union rose and fell; and the same powers that had bled each other for hundreds of years created a Common Market and unified currency.