This course investigates what it was like to live in war-torn Europe during the costliest conflict in the history of mankind. It covers the entire European homeland range of experience: belligerent nations and neutrals; Axis-occupied regions and those that escaped this fate. There will also be extensive comparison to the scene in the USA. Moving from case to case, we explore which nations turned out to be the most effective in homefront-mobilization and why; the issues, in the occupied regions, surrounding resistance and collaboration; and finally the longer-term legacies of this seminal experience in the history of our modern era.