The events and drama of Lessons unfold over a large swathe of 20th- and 21st-century history. Roland is born in 1948, and McEwan describes historical events that affect Roland right through to 2022. These include the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, as well as the War on Terror, following the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown in 2020. Meanwhile, references are made to events even further back informing Roland’s life. For example, McEwan describes the impact of World War II on Roland’s parents, as well as how his stepmother visits the ruins of immediate post-war Germany and the White Rose group she investigates.

While the range of historical reference in Lessons is broad, the main focal point of the novel, from a philosophical and historical viewpoint, is the end of the Cold War and the implications of this.

The Cold War was a period of hostility between the two rival superpowers that emerged after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union. Never escalating into direct, open warfare between the superpowers, the Cold War was instead fought via a series of proxy conflicts where both superpowers armed or supported different sides in regional conflicts.