History is seldom tidy. Eras overlap and unfinished business from one period lingers into the next. World War II was a war like no other in the magnitude of its effects on the lives of people and the fates of nations. It was a combination of many conflicts, including ethnic and national hatreds that followed the collapse of four empires and the redrawing of borders at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. A number of historians have argued that World War II was a phase of one long war