Great overview of World War II.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7...

IT IS DONE

I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED.

I HAVE BEEN READING THIS SINCE JANUARY.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Must like his WWI history, this was an excellent overview, but hard to get through at times.

One of my personal favorites when it comes to single volume histories of World War II, although it wasn't when I first read it. I think one of the reasons I like it so much now is that Stokesbury does a great job (and spends quite a bit of time on) the causes and effects of the war. He takes the first few chapters to go back to 1919 and explain why World War II was basically inevitable. He also manages to cover most of the aspects of World War II in enough detail to give the casual reader a basic understanding, whether it be a specific theater, a strategy, a world leader, etc. A great starting point if you are just beginning a study of World War II.

Excellent book for starters. This contains an effective summary of the great war. I feel that this will work as the ground work from which more learning can follow. Lookig forward to reading more books of World War 2.

Great concise history of WW2 including motives and criticism

One of Mr. Stokesbury's lucid & insightful, one-volume histories of various conflicts or battlefield weapons systems.

Great book. Author presents a down and dirty history, including a prelude to war, without glossing over too many details. He also infuses a lot of humor into what can be pretty dry. Books like this have the capability to draw people into reading history!

Hello.

I am the author of the above-listed book on the history of World War Two, here to reveal that 98% of the quotes and anecdotes related in it are totally invented, and also to ask you: Does this matter? To me, probably not--it seems unlikely that anyone responsible for my continued solvency (my publisher; my department's chairman) will come across this, and if they do, I will claim to have had nothing to do with it. I will publicly write it off as slander, probably on the part of a disgruntled former student. I will be lying--Professor Bradley, if you are reading this: I am about to lie right to your smug little fucking face, and you will have to believe me, because there is no way to prove that I wrote this.

Again: Every war-widow testimonial, every artfully recreated battle scene, every noble-sounding last utterance on the part of some fast-expiring French soldier to be found in the book that you can buy above for $13.99 is a complete and total lie, bad fiction masquerading as history and seeming all the more real for how hokey and cinematic it all sounds--"cliche is ultimately the truest form of expression" is something you might have written in the margins of this book if you're a pretentious fucking moron, but you're wrong--cliche is cliche and those fabricated dying words, lost to the sounds of artillery fire, were probably actually "ACHHgurglegurgleFUCKi'mDYingAHCH!"

But to get back to my first question: Does it matter to YOU? Do you read history to receive an accurate, objective retelling of What Happened? To position yourself in time, make sense of a world that you have no way of proving you did not invent? To kill time on the commuter train because it's better than humoring your next-door neighbor, drunk already and eager to show you lurid cell phone photos of his mistress?

I ask because I am curious. I have lied in this, what will probably be my final contribution to the great, futile cause of comprehension, because I no longer have any answers. A life spent trying to understand and artfully depict four years of unprecedented slaughter and my blood cells and only son still rebel, the former multiplying and what's left of the latter rapidly diving itself w/ the assistance of the drugs I was always too busy to experiment with. My wife, a superior student of history in every respect, lies buried among corpses which when animated could not have summarized an article in that very day's paper and still they died the same, maybe happier.

Which is all to say: Five stars. He really makes history come alive.

I liked the book (actually read it twice, still miffed that Goodreads won't let me mark that in some way), although I skimmed through some pages detailing the battles in Asia. Some parts were also difficult to read because of my poor knowledge of African, Asian and even French geography.

The bit about Germans bombing civilian targets in Great Britain first was very interesting to read after recently finishing Ken Follett's Winter of the Worlds, where it's mentioned that the British were the first to approve bombing of civilian targets in Germany (I can't find the exact quote). Apparently the topic is still controversial.

Favorite quotes:
"Their problem was the unwillingness of their high command to risk its vessels; ships tend to be expensive prestige items, and navies trying to establish a naval tradition are often reluctant to risk the material, not realizing that the tradition depends less upon the possession of the ships than upon the way they are used—and even the way they are lost. The Italian Navy saved its ships, and lost its soul."
"Where American and British tanks sported names like “Daisy Mae” and “Donald Duck,” the Russians carried slogans “For the Motherland!” and “Death to the Germans!”"

For those of you who are inclined to overrating, please don't be deterred by my 3 star review (plus, its more like a 3.5 star review.) Keep in mind that few subjects are as complicated or have had so much ink spilt over as World War II. One of the hardest issues facing a reader is determining which book to read when.

The wide breadth and shallow depth of book suited me quite well due to my embarrassingly poor grasp on the major events of WWII. Prior to this book, my piecemeal understanding of the subject was derived mainly from movies, documentaries, and more recently a few WWII memoirs. Stokesbury paints broadly with a wide brush and offers only modest levels of commentary on major events. Though Stokesbury, as any WWII author must do, was forced to jump from arena to arena and thus time frame to time frame, this book is organized chronologically by arena. I appreciated how the author often gave more attention to the catalysts that sparked individual conflicts than the conflicts themselves. In my judgment, this is critical for one's understanding of a major military conflict.

I did have a few minor disappointments. For those reading the kindle edition, the maps are both scarce and of such poor quality that they proves to be worthless. One must read this book in the company of a good atlas. I used a cheap one: The Historical Atlas of World War II. Also, Stokesbury's prose was a little wooden and clunky at times but still quite readable. My most significant concern about this book was the glaring lack of citations. Though the author provides a 20 page annotated bibliography, he does not use notes. While I concede this may be a necessary byproduct of a "Short History" it is hard to overlook. The author writes as if he is simply recounting a narrative of the war, as if he is a leading authority on the subject. There are a few times where he acknowledges the broader field of literature, but this lands this work squarely into popular history. Students, serious readers, and historians must bear this in mind and look elsewhere for any serious treatment on the issue. I can however, bear with these shortcomings as part of a "short history."

I spent some time in deliberation between this and John Keegan's The Second World War. After reading 50 pages of Keegan, I decided to deter his work till I had a better grasp on the chronology of the war. I feel I chose well. Keegan would be a better choice for beginner/intermediate readers. I will read him in the next 3-5 years.

With all this being said, I do give the book a moderate to high recommendation for anyone looking for a western overview of the events of the War.