Atlas Trail
From Global War to Total War
Six wars in chronological order, from medieval England and France through Vietnam, tracing how wars grew from regional dynastic conflicts into globe-spanning and eventually total wars.
Stop 1 of 6.
Wars
1337-1453: England and France fight intermittently for over a century; total losses are never reconciled from the surviving record.
Stop 2 of 6.
Wars
1756-1763: often called the first global conflict, fought across Europe, North America, India and West Africa at once.
Stop 3 of 6.
Wars
1803-1815: a redrawn map of Europe and, in occupied Spain, the birth of the word guerrilla.
Stop 4 of 6.
Wars
1853-1856: modern war reporting and Florence Nightingale's nursing reforms follow from the war's notoriously poor medical care.
Stop 5 of 6.
Wars
1950-1953: a Cold War proxy conflict that ended in armistice, not peace; the peninsula remains divided today.
Stop 6 of 6.
Wars
1955-1975: guerrilla doctrine tested against a superpower, and the most sharply disputed death toll of any war in this atlas.
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