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Author: Steven D. Mercatante Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 424
Book Description
This book offers a unique perspective for understanding how and why the Second World War in Europe ended as it did—and why Germany, in attacking the Soviet Union, came far closer to winning the war than is often perceived. Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe challenges this conventional wisdom in highlighting how the re-establishment of the traditional German art of war—updated to accommodate new weapons systems—paved the way for Germany to forge a considerable military edge over its much larger potential rivals by playing to its qualitative strengths as a continental power. Ironically, these methodologies also created and exacerbated internal contradictions that undermined the same war machine and left it vulnerable to enemies with the capacity to adapt and build on potent military traditions of their own. The book begins by examining topics such as the methods by which the German economy and military prepared for war, the German military establishment's formidable strengths, and its weaknesses. The book then takes an entirely new perspective on explaining the Second World War in Europe. It demonstrates how Germany, through its invasion of the Soviet Union, came within a whisker of cementing a European-based empire that would have allowed the Third Reich to challenge the Anglo-American alliance for global hegemony—an outcome that by commonly cited measures of military potential Germany never should have had even a remote chance of accomplishing. The book's last section explores the final year of the war and addresses how Germany was able to hang on against the world's most powerful nations working in concert to engineer its defeat.
Author: Steven D. Mercatante Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 424
Book Description
This book offers a unique perspective for understanding how and why the Second World War in Europe ended as it did—and why Germany, in attacking the Soviet Union, came far closer to winning the war than is often perceived. Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe challenges this conventional wisdom in highlighting how the re-establishment of the traditional German art of war—updated to accommodate new weapons systems—paved the way for Germany to forge a considerable military edge over its much larger potential rivals by playing to its qualitative strengths as a continental power. Ironically, these methodologies also created and exacerbated internal contradictions that undermined the same war machine and left it vulnerable to enemies with the capacity to adapt and build on potent military traditions of their own. The book begins by examining topics such as the methods by which the German economy and military prepared for war, the German military establishment's formidable strengths, and its weaknesses. The book then takes an entirely new perspective on explaining the Second World War in Europe. It demonstrates how Germany, through its invasion of the Soviet Union, came within a whisker of cementing a European-based empire that would have allowed the Third Reich to challenge the Anglo-American alliance for global hegemony—an outcome that by commonly cited measures of military potential Germany never should have had even a remote chance of accomplishing. The book's last section explores the final year of the war and addresses how Germany was able to hang on against the world's most powerful nations working in concert to engineer its defeat.
Author: Richard Overy Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393651762 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 454
Book Description
"Overy has written a masterpiece of analytical history, posing and answering one of the great questions of the century."—Sunday Times (London) Richard Overy's bold book begins by throwing out the stock answers to this great question: Germany doomed itself to defeat by fighting a two-front war; the Allies won by "sheer weight of material strength." In fact, by 1942 Germany controlled almost the entire resources of continental Europe and was poised to move into the Middle East. The Soviet Union had lost the heart of its industry, and the United States was not yet armed. The Allied victory in 1945 was not inevitable. Overy shows us exactly how the Allies regained military superiority and why they were able to do it. He recounts the decisive campaigns: the war at sea, the crucial battles on the eastern front, the air war, and the vast amphibious assault on Europe. He then explores the deeper factors affecting military success and failure: industrial strength, fighting ability, the quality of leadership, and the moral dimensions of the war.
Author: Andrew Nagorski Publisher: Simon & Schuster ISBN: 1501181130 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
Bestselling historian Andrew Nagorski “brings keen psychological insights into the world leaders involved” (Booklist) during 1941, the critical year in World War II when Hitler’s miscalculations and policy of terror propelled Churchill, FDR, and Stalin into a powerful new alliance that defeated Nazi Germany. In early 1941, Hitler’s armies ruled most of Europe. Churchill’s Britain was an isolated holdout against the Nazi tide, but German bombers were attacking its cities and German U-boats were attacking its ships. Stalin was observing the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and Roosevelt was vowing to keep the United States out of the war. Hitler was confident that his aim of total victory was within reach. But by the end of 1941, all that changed. Hitler had repeatedly gambled on escalation and lost: by invading the Soviet Union and committing a series of disastrous military blunders; by making mass murder and terror his weapons of choice, and by rushing to declare war on the United States after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Britain emerged with two powerful new allies—Russia and the United States. By then, Germany was doomed to defeat. Nagorski illuminates the actions of the major characters of this pivotal year as never before. 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War is a stunning and “entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) examination of unbridled megalomania versus determined leadership. It also reveals how 1941 set the Holocaust in motion, and presaged the postwar division of Europe, triggering the Cold War. 1941 was “the year that shaped not only the conflict of the hour but the course of our lives—even now” (New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham).
Author: Andrew Roberts Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0062079476 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 819
Book Description
“Gripping. . . . splendid history. A brilliantly clear and accessible account of the war in all its theaters. Roberts’s prose is unerringly precise and strikingly vivid. It is hard to imagine a better-told military history of World War II.” –New York Times Book Review Andrew Roberts's acclaimed new history has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic conflict. From the western front to North Africa, from the Baltic to the Far East, he tells the story of the war—the grand strategy and the individual experience, the brutality and the heroism—as never before. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, The Storm of War illuminates the war's principal actors, revealing how their decisions shaped the course of the conflict. Along the way, Roberts presents tales of the many lesser-known individuals whose experiences form a panoply of the courage and self-sacrifice, as well as the depravity and cruelty, of the Second World War.
Author: Randall Hansen Publisher: Anchor Canada ISBN: 0307372383 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 386
Book Description
National Bestseller An enlightening and utterly convincing re-examination of the allied aerial bombing campaign and of civilian German suffering during World War II–an essential addition to our understanding of world history. During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. Much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, and using a compelling narrative approach, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, aircrew in the sky, and civilians on the ground. Acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was wedded to an outdated strategy whose success had never been proven; how area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it; and that the US campaign, which was driven by a particularly American fusion of optimism and morality, played an important and largely unrecognized role in delivering Allied victory.
Author: R. M. Douglas Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300183763 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 696
Book Description
The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.
Author: Jo Walton Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1429944404 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
An influential family’s weekend party is the stage for murder in this alternative history trilogy opener set in a post-WWII England where the Nazis won. Eight years have passed since the upper-crust “Farthing Set” overthrew Winston Churchill and led Britain into a separate peace with Hitler. Now those families have gathered for a weekend retreat. Among them is estranged scion Lucy Kahn, who can’t understand why she and her husband, David, were so enthusiastically invited. But all becomes clear when the eminent Sir James Thirkie is found murdered—with a yellow Star of David pinned to his chest. Lucy realizes that her Jewish husband is about to be framed for the crime, an outcome that would be altogether too politically convenient, given the machinations underway in Parliament in the coming week. The Farthing Set are determined to pass laws further restricting the right to vote, and a new outcry against Jews and foreigners would suit them fine. But whoever’s behind the murder and the frame-up didn’t count on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being so prone to look beyond the obvious—or his being a man with his own private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts and underdogs . . . Praise for Farthing “If le Carré scares you, try Jo Walton. Of course her brilliant story of a democracy selling itself out to fascism sixty years ago is just a mystery, just a thriller, just a fantasy—of course we know nothing like that could happen now. Don’t we?” —Ursula K. Le Guin “Walton . . . crosses genres without missing a beat with this stunningly powerful alternative history set in 1949. . . . While the whodunit plot is compelling, it’s the convincing portrait of a country’s incremental slide into fascism that makes this novel a standout. Mainstream readers should be enthralled as well.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Author: Frederick Taylor Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1608193829 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 531
Book Description
The collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 was an event nearly unprecedented in history. Only the fall of the Roman Empire fifteen hundred years earlier compares to the destruction visited on Germany. The country's cities lay in ruins, its economic base devastated. The German people stood at the brink of starvation, millions of them still in POW camps. This was the starting point as the Allies set out to build a humane, democratic nation on the ruins of the vanquished Nazi state-arguably the most monstrous regime the world has ever seen. In Exorcising Hitler, master historian Frederick Taylor tells the story of Germany's Year Zero and what came next. He describes the bitter endgame of war, the murderous Nazi resistance, the vast displacement of people in Central and Eastern Europe, and the nascent cold war struggle between Soviet and Western occupiers. The occupation was a tale of rivalries, cynical realpolitik, and blunders, but also of heroism, ingenuity, and determination-not least that of the German people, who shook off the nightmare of Nazism and rebuilt their battered country. Weaving together accounts of occupiers and Germans, high and low alike Exorcising Hitler is a tour de force of both scholarship and storytelling, the first comprehensive account of this critical episode in modern history.
Author: Bevin Alexander Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0307420930 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
From an acclaimed military historian, a fascinating account of just how close the Allies were to losing World War II. Most of us rally around the glory of the Allies' victory over the Nazis in World War II. The story is often told of how the good fight was won by an astonishing array of manpower and stunning tactics. However, what is often overlooked is how the intersection between Adolf Hitler's influential personality and his military strategy was critical in causing Germany to lose the war. With an acute eye for detail and his use of clear prose, Bevin Alexander goes beyond counterfactual "What if?" history and explores for the first time just how close the Allies were to losing the war. Using beautifully detailed, newly designed maps, How Hitler Could Have Won World War II exquisitely illustrates the important battles and how certain key movements and mistakes by Germany were crucial in determining the war's outcome. Alexander's harrowing study shows how only minor tactical changes in Hitler's military approach could have changed the world we live in today. Alexander probes deeply into the crucial intersection between Hitler's psyche and military strategy and how his paranoia fatally overwhelmed his acute political shrewdness to answer the most terrifying question: Just how close were the Nazis to victory?
Author: Steven D. Mercatante
Author: Steven D. Mercatante
Author: Richard Overy
Author: Andrew Nagorski
Author: Andrew Roberts
Author: Randall Hansen
Author: R. M. Douglas
Author: Jo Walton
Author: Frederick Taylor
Author: Phillips Payson O'Brien
Author: Bevin Alexander