This is no doubt an interesting photo album but suffers from having been written from the winner's point of view in a very obvious manner plus almost half of the book covers the US involvement in the Pacific and the war with Japan, which is quite disproportionate considering the whole of World War 2.

Firstly, the winner's point of view is evident in too many photo captions. Whereas all the Allied soldiers in the pictures are always described as "brave", "victorious" or "heroic", the Axis soldiers depicted doing the exact same things as the Allies soldiers (storming into battle or crash-landing in burning planes) are for some reason always "doomed", "frenzied" or "desperate". I found that slant quite distasteful.

Secondly, whereas half of the book is dedicated to the USA fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, this disproportionate coverage becomes evident when one compares the 100 000 US military losses against Japan with the 10 million Soviet military losses against Germany (who itself also lost around 6 million soldiers). The US suffered less than 1% of the casualties of what the Russians suffered against the Germans, so dedicating half the book to events covering that 1%, while leaving the other half to deal with all the rest is not very balanced in my opinion.

Probably the culmination of this bias is the two-page coverage of a World War 2 ace fighter pilot. Was it Erich Hartmann, who had 352 confirmed air kills? Or any of the 100 Luftwaffe pilots, who had more than 100 kills? Or the best Japanese pilot, who had 90 kills or the best Soviet one, who had 60? Of course not - the only fighter pilot introduced in detail was the top-scoring US pilot Richard Bong, who had 40 kills. Sure, he was and probably will remain the top-scoring US fighter pilot of all time and I am sure he was an incredible pilot - but if you were to choose just one pilot from the whole war to feature, why would you chose someone, who wasn't even in the top 200? The only possible answer is because he is from the US, never mind the fact that his 40 kills is absolutely dwarfed by the mind-blowing feats of Erich Hartmann with his 352 kills or any of the 16 Luftwaffe pilots who amassed 200+ kills.

Granted, this is a book produced in the US and many of the photos are by LIFE photographers, so a slight US slant would be understandable and acceptable. However, for a book that claims to cover the whole war and which even in its introduction touts that rare photos were researched and found from all over the world (Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy etc), it is unfortunate that we see and learn so little of the crucial battles fought in North Africa, Russia and Europe and are saturated with coverage of the Pacific theatre, which was essentially just a side-show compared to what was going on in Europe at the time.

The essays introducing each year by eminent authors are succinct and to the point, though of a somewhat uneven quality and once again slanted heavily towards the US involvement. The "Then and Now" sections presenting the influence of WW2 on life today is a good idea in theory but in practice it falls flat. Had the editors of the book kept to their original goal of showing us incredible photos from 1938-1945, those war-time photos would have made the book timeless and enduring. However, to illustrate their "Then and Now" essays, we are also shown various photos from the 90s and even 2001, which really have no place in the book. In fact, the unintended consequence of these more "modern" photos is that they make the book look incredibly dated instead.

I honestly expected more out of this book. It is still an excellent photo album and a passable overview of WW2, however be prepared for a disproportionate coverage of the Pacific theatre and it really doesn't do justice to the intended goal of covering the whole of World War 2.

I really like this book, the pictures really showcase how the war was through pictures. It is really interesting to me because the pictures really do say a lot even without having to explain it. I really think this book is good for anyone to look at.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than this book is worth about 630,000. WW2 told almost completely in pictures. I love the way that it is organized by country, though why no Albania?

The pictures are amazing - up to the high quality you expect from Life Magazine... but the text is inadequate and sometimes glosses over historical issues with sweeping generalizations. The essays at the beginning do provide some balance, though I'm unsure why the editors chose to eat up precious page space with the "Then & Now" sections.

Not a bad introduction to the war - but not a terribly good one, either.

My book review on Life: World War 2: History's Greatest Conflict in Pictures by Richard B. Stolley


tMy review about this book is long, so be warned. The book (obviously) talks about World War 2 from the beginning or in fact before it even started.

The book itself has many pictures and a lot of the pictures do cover much of the book’s pages, now don’t get me wrong, im a picture book fan too, i’m just putting this out there for the people who want to look at the reviews before buying or renting this book, so sorry to say but, if your not really much of a picture book fan, then this book is not for you.

Things I like about this book:

The book is self is pretty neat, I do like how they explain the events that happen in ww2 (World War 2). The author, Richard B. Stolley from what i heard on some other views has quite a like to the allies, so yes, I guess you could say this is more of an pro-allied book, so get ready for that pro-allied stuff, but don’t worry not much propaganda is really in the book, just pictures, mostly. I also do like the fact that they (in my opinion) explain or go deeper about the allies, for example: (WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILER)after germany lost ww2 the book says and shows pictures about what the allies did to make the germans feel ashamed of they have done. Another thing i would also like to point out why i like this book is that they show pictures of mid-fighting, there's even one where it shows a B-17 or B-29 bombing fire carpet bombing a small city in japan, which i would say, if that photo taken during the bombing raid BY a japanese person, i would consider that photo as a very rare one because pictures like bombing raids on japan is mostly taken pictures by U.S. AF personnel or a news/media guest. The last thing i would say i like this book is how they tell you what vehicles are in those historic photos, for example: your reading the book and it shows a photo of a tank that you’ve probably seen in movies or on the internet, you could only describe its shape or structure, looks like a box with a cinder-like turret, then you look on the side of the picture and it says its a Tiger H1 or Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E as its full name (i know, it's extremely long name for a tank.)

Things I don’t like about this book:

One of the things I don’t like about the book is that it really doesn't explain more about the axis side, YES, it does show photos of what they were doing or when just hours or minutes away from going defensive or offensive, but for me, it doesn't go deep enough with the axis, its really a bummer to say, oh well at least they show pictures to kinda gives the idea what they were going through. Another thing (correct me if i’m wrong) I don’t like is how the author mostly depicted the allies soldiers as brave and courageous while the axis where depicted as bad guys and (if i remember) the author even said that some of their plans near the the end of the war were stupid or unnecessary, i’m not trying to say i’m a pro-axis but give them some slack, the axis possibly tried their best to take whatever territory they wanted to conquer at the time and some of their plans were actually pretty good, i’m sorry i can’t really name a few and give examples, but maybe if i do some research i could probably write half page about the plans. The last one I don’t like about the book is that it lacks A LOT of coverage in naval action in European waters or the Atlantic Ocean, which is important mid-war, just to say, from what I know, again A LOT of important information happend in the Euro/Atlantic ocean/waters (most of it helped the allies land at D-Day.)
Okie, this review has gone quiet a bit longer than expected, other and all, do i recommend reading this book? Simply, yes i do recommend this book, only to the people who like picture books though...but it could be for people who also like reading more than looking at pictures. I don’t know if i said this before, but the book maybe a bit old but it’s still a pretty good book to read.

Coffee Table book about World War 2. Lots of pictures, but I found the articles a bit shallow.

A remarkable collection of photographs, framed by interpretive essays from top historians.

Quite good. Pictures were very revealing. Year by year explanation of events of World War 2.

I believe this book is amazing because it covered all of the fronts. It also talked about some of the events that happened after the war.On many occasions this book taught me new things like what happened in china with the rape of nanking which was a horrible event or Stalingrad. I would
recommend this book to many who are interested in WW2.

Awesome pictures, well edited, and great articles before each year of the war make this an informative and fascinating read.