Possibly the best general history of the war. Beevor does a good job with the familiar theaters of war (Eastern Front, island hopping in the Pacific) but he does not stint Burma, Greece, North Africa, and China. He does a particularly good job with the Byzantine politics surrounding Poland, France, and China. His insights are generally fresh. Unlike many writers, for example, he does not apologize for or exaggerate Chiang Kai-Shek's shortcomings, but rather he illustrates the no-win situation that Chiang was in. On the other hand, anybody that wants no-holds-barred portrayals of the dictatorships in the war will not be disappointed.Beevor does a good job juggling the chronologies.Perhaps my only quibble is a sense that Beevor is not as interested in the naval side of things. However, this is a one-volume history and even an interesting smaller naval engagement does not merit a lot of space. Anthony Beevor has written several histories of specific parts of WWII, D-Day, Stalingrad, Berlin, but said in the introduction his knowledge of the war both in the Pacific and Europe was "weak" so he set out to remedy that. He certainly did with as nice a read as one could ask for. He put everything into the larger picture of the whole war. The book explains several things I did not understand before - the antagonism between France and America being one. The French government and senior military were impossibly incompetent and impossibly uncooperative.He also talks about the fear of the Communist Politburo and the NKVD of the returning Red Army soldiers who had seen how much better things were in Europe even with the total destruction caused by the war. They were reminded that the Decembrist Revolt of 1825 was caused in part by Russian officers who served in the Tsar's army all the way to Paris in 1814 and saw how backwards Russia actually was compared to Europe.Beevor also discusses Stalin's plans, drawn up in 1944 to take the Red Army all the way to the English Channel once they had finished with Germany. Only America's development of the atomic bomb forced him to shelve the idea.This was my first history book read on an e-reader. Not impressed but fortunately I did not need the (tiny) maps or end notes on an on-going basis.
What do You think about The Second World War (2012)?
good book. good job of putting the conflict in the larger context of history.
—ddssaa
