The second World War : a complete history / Martin Gilbert.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the hands of master historian Martin Gilbert, the complex and compelling story of the Second World War comes to life. This narrative captures the perspectives of leading politicians and war commanders, journalists, civilians, and ordinary soldiers, offering gripping eyewitness accounts of heroism, defeat, suffering, and triumph.

This is one of the first historical studies of World War II that describes the Holocaust as an integral part of the war. It also covers maneuvers, strategies, and leaders operating in European, Asian, and Pacific theatres. In addition, this book brings in survivor testimonies of occupation, survival behind enemy lines, and the experience of minority groups such as the Roma in Europe, to offer a comprehensive account of the war's impact on individual lives on both sides. This is a sweeping narrative of one of the most deadly wars in history, which took almost forty million lives.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Though few one-volume histories of World War II have been published in the last ten years, the 50th anniversary of the war's start has inspired new works: Gilbert's book and John Keegan's The Second World War (reviewed in this issue, p. 102) are two of them. Gilbert's is less a battle history than Keegan's. For Gilbert (biographer of Churchill and Holocaust historian, author of the massive The Holocaust, LJ 2/1/86) the movements of armies and the decisions of statesmen were ultimately the consequences of Nazi and Japanese racial policies. Thus the struggles and fates of Axis victims are essential to the complete history of war, which inflicted such unprecedented suffering on innocent parties. Gilbert uses this perspective to present the war from an original angle. Accounts of campaigns and conferences are directly juxtaposed to descriptions of atrocities and resistance. Gilbert draws his human interest not from battlefields and home fronts, as do most histories of the war, but from concentration camps and ghettoes. In so doing he reminds us that World War II was a ``good war,'' because it was fought against tyrannies that perpetuated obscenities as a matter of principle. Recommended for all collections.-- Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This volume has an ``astonishingly broad'' scope, revealing the impact of major campaigns on soldiers and civilians worldwide. ``Masterful,'' said PW . ``Though the military aspect is told with noteworthy clarity and narrative power, most impressive is Gilbert's presentation of WW II as primarily a matter of organized evil and mass madness.'' Photos. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

From esteemed historian Gilbert (History/Oxford; The Holocaust, 1986; Shcharansky, 1986; etc.), a massive (800 pp., with 103 maps and 130 b&w photos--not seen) one-volume history of WW II. Employing an engaging narrative style bristling with an astonishing wealth of detail, Martin traces the war from August 31, 1939--the day before the German invasion of Poland--when ""an unknown prisoner in one of Adolf Hitler's concentration camps, most probably a common criminal"" became the war's first victim, to 1945--and beyond: a final chapter finds, for example, that even in 1989 the ""unfinished business"" of the war still disrupts the volatile politics of West Berlin. In between, major campaigns, political tides, and personalities on both fronts--European and Pacific--are covered in satisfying breadth, depth, and attention to both the personal (the horror of American soldiers upon viewing the concentration camps; Hitler firing his cook after learning she had a Jewish great-grandmother) and the big picture. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.