Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4041 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-03
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Antony Beevor
`James Holland has written his best book yet, a gripping, yet compassionate account of the terrible war in Italy.'

Synopsis
Today Italy is a land of beauty and prosperity but in 1944-45 it had become a place of nightmares, a land of violence, war, and destruction. James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly documents the German advance to the stalemate of the Gothic line and a segment of Italian history that has been largely neglected. The war in Italy was the most destructive campaign in the west as the Allies and Germans fought a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict up the mountainous leg of Italy during the last twelve months of the Second World War. For front-line troops, casualties rates at Cassino and then along the notorious Gothic Line were as high as they had been along the Western Front in the First World War. There were further similarities too: blasted landscapes, rain and mud. For the men who fought there, Italy really was the hardest campaign. And while the Allies and Germans were slogging it out through the mountains, the Italians were fighting their own battles, one where Partisans and Fascists were pitted against each other in a bloody civil war.Around them, civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy while, in the wake of the Allied advance, beleaguered and impoverished Italians were forced to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country and often forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive.

'Italy's Sorrow' is the first account of the war in that most beautiful of countries to tell the story from all sides and to include the experiences of soldiers and civilians alike. Offering extensive new research, it weaves together the drama and tragedy of a terrible year of war with new perspectives and material on some of the most debated episodes to have emerged from the Second World War. It is a magnificent achievement by one of our finest young military historians.

Customer Reviews

If only history was taught like this in school...
James Holland's generosity of spirit and indefatiguable labour has created one of the best general histories I've read recently--and there's a lot of stiff competition about. As well as using writen sources, Holland personally interviewed survivors from all sides of the conflict; Germans, Poles, Canadians, Britons, Americans, Italian partisans and fascists. These accounts give a vivid picture of the heroism and brutality of war, and instil a sense of sympathy for (almost) all of the participants. Their stories are skillfully blended into the larger narrative, which explains what happened, and why the major players (Alexander, Mark Clark, Kesselring, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussolini, etc) made crucial decisions. Holland is immenently fair-minded; the controversy surrounding Clark's dash for Rome (in defiance of Alexander's orders) is explained from all sides of the question.

Comparing this book with the banal materials presented in England's National Curriculum, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that our educators don't want our children to understand the past. If books like these--which don't require a vast amount of background knowledge--were used in our high schools, pupils would be queuing up to study history. For all that this is accessible to the non-specialist, there's nothing superficial about it. Certainly one of its most attractive features is the sympathy Holland shows to his cast of characters--a welcome relief from the sneering debunking that has been fashionable ever since Lytton Strachey first picked up his pen.

Another tour de force
This comparatively ignored part of WW2 occurred at around the same time as the Normandy landings but was every bit as ferocious, if not more so. Huge tracts of Italy were laid bare by the clashing armies, one of the most poignant photographic representations I have ever seen shows the lovely little town of Monte Cassino before and after the whirlwind of war had passed by; there was absolutely nothing left. As always with this superb author, we learn the tragedy of the civilians caught up in the catastrophic destruction, the confused politics, and the relentless slog of both the generals and the soldiers on each side. Amazing to discover that there seventeen different nations involved on the allied side including such diverse cultures as the Brazilians, Maoris, and Moroccan tribesmen. The latter though managed to disgrace themselves through extreme rape and pillage, adding to the continuing misery of the innocents, and they were never brought to justice, unlike the Germans who did commit many atrocities but not at the same level of depravity. Another beautifully written and complete piece of work.

Wow what a clear and honest book
This book makes a very clear picture of a very comlex part of the second world war. Harrowing in places the brutal truth of war and its impact on the civilian population is here in all its naked horrow.
I can't rate this high eneough and i cant wait to read his Novel based in the second world war due out in May.