Product Description

The period from 1939-1945 saw some of the most devastating events in living memory. Bringing the experience of war to life through contemporary documentation, this work tells the stories of the men and women who lived and died during World War II.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #563798 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Customer Reviews

A BOOK NOT TO SET ON FLAMES....
This amazing but tragic book gives you all the information you'll ever need to know about the Second World War. The writing isn't too big for the younger readers among you (like me) and it has pictures, maps, detailed information and the British army tactics on nearly every page. This book isn't one of those 'boring' 1,000 page size 4 writing books, but an outstanding masterpiece that just makes you want to keep on turning the pages.

Sadly Lots of Errors
The history of World War 2 contained in this publication is very easy to read and contains a wealth of information which could help a student of the WW2 to achieve an overview of the complicated events which make up that conflict.

It should be noted that Sir Max Hastings did not write the whole of this book, he only provided the foreword. The authors of this book are listed at the front of the book, on the inside cover.

There are many images which help to bring alive the main text. The maps especially are very well laid out, though often the maps are located on pages well away from the description of what happened in the main text.

This book is split into sections dealing with the different areas of conflict which together constituted the Second World War:

Part I: Europe 1939-1943
Part II: The War At Sea
Part III: The Mediterranean 1940-1945
Part IV: The Pacific
Part V: The Eastern Front 1941-1945
Part VI: Northwest Europe 1944-1945

I personally appreciated the brief chapters at the end of the different parts which considered the experiences of ordinary people involved in the war. For example at the end of `Part III: The Mediterranean 1940-1945' there is a chapter entitled `A Modest Hero' which relates the experiences of Charles Hazlitt Upham VC and Bar (1908 - 94). This New Zealand soldier displayed outstanding bravery and despite being repeatedly wounded carried on fighting the Nazi solders he apparently so steadfastly despised. In other chapters we learn about the experiences of a merchant mariner, a civilian suffering in the London blitz and the experiences of individual soldiers fighting in different armies during the war.

One thing which I found very frustrating though are the many errors and contradictory statements contained in this book. One example of these can be found on page 193. There is an image of HMS Ark Royal just before she sunk in 1941 showing survivors being taken off the stricken vessel. The caption states:

"Destroyers take men off from the sinking British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal on 2nd December 1941, after she had been torpedoed by the German submarine U-81. Her loss came just a week after the battleship HMS Barham had been spectacularly destroyed by U-331"

And yet in the main text below this image/caption the description is very different, in fact it completely contradicts the caption. The date of HMS Ark Royal's sinking is different and instead of taking place "just a week after the battleship HMS Barham" had been sunk, it states that the sinking of HMS Ark Royal took place before HMS Barham was lost:

"On 14 November the aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed and sunk, followed 11 days later by the battleship HMS Barham, which capsized and split apart in a massive explosion..."

Further research shows that the information in the main body of text is in fact accurate. Errors and contractions of this nature litter this book. When one is confronted by such sloppy accuracy it becomes difficult to rely upon much of the information provided and further checking is constantly needed to verify facts, figures and dates etc.

There is much to admire in this book about World War 2. Obviously a book of this size can only cover briefly the huge events of World War 2, but what you can learn from this book should provide a good foundation for further learning. Sadly though this book is undermined by the constant errors, which proves very disappointing and time consuming.