Product Description

By 1942 the civilised world had been brought to the brink of ruin. It had taken the Axis powers less than three years to command the high seas in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific, to lay waste most of Europe and enslave millions in Asia, to drive deep into Stalin's Soviet empire and come within an ace of controlling the oilfields in the Middle East. At the height of their power the European dictators and the Japanese military autocracy ruled ruthlessly almost half the world. Standing alone, the British were bankrupt and the United States only driven from isolation by the humiliation at Pearl Harbour. Before the tide fully turned in 1943, millions had been put to death, the machinery of the holocaust was in place and nuclear devastation well on the way to become a reality. Yet, Deighton warns, fifty years on the lessons of the Second World War continue to reverberate unheeded. Racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, recession, trade wars and the widening gap between the world's rich and poor promise economic migration on a frightening scale. The dangers of today are seen all too clearly in this account of a recent time when humanity was consumed by violence and destruction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145505 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

About the Author
Len Deighton is the author of over thirty bestsellers of carefully researched fiction and non-fiction. His history writing was encouraged by A. J. P. Taylor and his books are noted for the picture they provide of the German side of the fighting as well as that of the Allies. His books include Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain and Blitzkrieg, both published by Pimlico.

Customer Reviews

A superb introduction to World War II.
As a newcomer to the leisure reading of military history I found Len Deighton's book extremely interesting, utterly digestable and, most important of all, very difficult to put down! Each chapter tells a story in its own right and ,for once, useful descriptions and details of much of the important materiel of war is included.

Thoroughly recommended
My first purchase on WWII history - and what a start! Having set the scene on events leading to the outbreak of war, Deighton then leads you through the battle for the Atlantic, the Battle of Britain, North Africa, the Eastern Front, war in the Pacific and others, with an incisiveness and detail I found both amazing and alarming. Can't praise it enough - thoroughly recommended.

Blood,Tears and Folly; an objective view of world war II
I have never read any of len deighton's previous work but this book gives the reader a real empathy of world leading upto and including the second world war.The narrative has the same effect as reading a fiction novel and so makes it easy to follow, this is what i have enjoyed about reading the book. I would recomend this book for any person who wants to read a good unbiased factual account of this time period, even if history is not a subject they would normally choose books about.