Customer Reviews

The Second World War: A Complete History

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No one has been more acclaimed or prolific in writing about the total scope of twentieth century history than British author and historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who sometimes seems to represent a kind of one-man revival in British historical publication. Here he focuses impressively on the total scope of World War Two, from the opening shots fired in Poland to the surrender of the Japanese in Tokyo Bay. He brings impressive credentials to the task; as the foremost biographer and authority on Winston Churchill (with an 8 volume biography already published), he is obviously well versed on the particulars of the European theater of the conflict, and in this volume he displays how comprehensive his knowledge of the other theaters of wars, especially the Pacific campaign, is as well.

Readers looking for specific orders of battle or "blow by blow" detailed accounts of particular engagements are likely to be disappointed, but even die-hard military huffs like me sometimes tire of such endlessly specifics, and it is refreshing to have an approach like Gilbert's which concentrates more on the context and connections of such engagements to use to get a better and perhaps more complete appreciation for what was happening in the same time or in the local area that materially affected the progress and eventual outcome of a particular battle. After all, this war was indeed global, and it is indeed useful to recognize that events transpiring in Stalingrad were materially affected by the dispositions of troops and airplanes dedicated to other Nazi commitments in the Mediterranean theater or to defend the skies of Berlin against British and American air raids.

Gilbert's sweeping prose style and selection of topics makes for entertaining and informative reading; he masterfully weaves together a meaningful context in which the political, military, and diplomatic aspects of the conflict are connected in a perspective that always pays compassionate heed to the civilian impact of the bloody struggle. As one of the foremost authorities on the Holocaust, Gilbert blends the particulars of the "Final Solution" into the history as part of the ongoing narrative, placing it in context and offering the opinion that it seemed more the result of exigent circumstance and expediency that it evolved the way it did rather than as a calculated and well-organized campaign of deliberate mass extermination. This isn't to say the Nazis didn't mean to solve their so-called "Jewish Question" violently; it just means that the particular way this was accomplished owed much more to happenstance than to contrived evil brilliance.

Of particular interest is the way Gilbert uses personal recollections and anecdotal details to humanize the epic struggle and to bring home the horrific and monstrous scale on which this war brought terror, death and destruction to much of the civilized world. He reminds us with compelling evidence and stirring narratives that people died horribly and needlessly every day during the disastrous, painful, and nearly six-year long struggle. If you want to better understand what happened during WWII and why it did, this wonderful and admirably comprehensive overview will serve you quite well. Enjoy

I started this book with high hopes. Martin Gilbert is a famous historian and has done much to educate the world about the holocaust. I also feel the idea of a strictly chronological blow-by-blow history of World War II is a promising premise. However, the book provides little more than a collection of facts arranged chronologically.

There is absolutely no historical or political context--the invasion of Poland starts on page 1 and he never backtracks to fill it in. There is very little analysis, usually just a listing of what battles occurred each month and how many tanks, planes, and/or casualties on each side. Instead of forming an arresting narrative, it just becomes a mind-numbing list of events that are never tied together. The format could lend itself to a discussion of global strategy, being organized by time rather than region. However, this is never pursued.

The only reason I would look at this book again is if I needed to reference it for facts or dates. A great deal of scholarship was clearly involved in assembling these and, as such, it might be a useful reference, but from such a book I would expect much more.

Instead of reading this book, for a truly excellent history of WWII, read Weinberg's "A World at Arms".

The great Churchill scholar Martin Gilbert's 'complete' history of the Second World War can perhaps be faulted on only one count: plodding.

This weakness in rhetorical strategy is also the virtue that sets this history of the Second War apart from others. A glimpse at the dated chapters in the table of contents is barely enough to prepare the reader for the cumulative impact of marching month by month through this great conflagration. One skips from one military theater to the next, always aligned with the same dates.

Thus, Gilbert allows the crushing burden of *world* war to settle upon the careful reader with devastating effect. One wonders how the world survived.

Survive it did, thanks in part - with apologies to doctrinaire oponents of 'great men' history-making - to decision-makers and opinion-shapers like Gilbert's beloved Churchill. Still, the bulk of this work's attention falls upon the generals. How could it be otherwise in a theater-movement-and-strategy approach? One follows the bloodied paths of armies who follow, to some degree at least, the edicts of generals who see dimly through their glasses and on their HQ maps. This, too, is a reality of war.

I highly recommend this book. It is not the view of the man in the foxhole or the nurse in the dressing station. It is, however, a bird's-eye view of how the world tore itself to pieces and then stopped just before there was nothing left.

Martin Gilbert's volume on the Second World War is truly a complete history. It is not just a story of battles and great men, but also a story of unparalleled suffering. The Second World War was the most destructive conflict ever to afflict our planet, and Gilbert makes the reader realize this, with his relentlessness in reporting death. In an almost day by day account, Gilbert informs the reader that while all the great battles were taking place, while generals were winning fame, the people of Europe, especially the Jews, were suffering unimaginable horrors. This is the true legacy of World War Two, and Gilbert gets the point across well. As you read the book, you cannot help but feel sick at the awesome loss of life taking place in Hitler's concentration camps. The vivid descriptions of gassings, and the ovens working 24 hours a day, made me put the book down more than once.

Gilbert also talks about the battles, and his descriptions of these are just as vivid if not as detailed. You can imagine what it was like to be there, but don't know everything that happened. In the end you get the sense that Gilbert's focus was definitely not on the military aspects, but on the overall cost of life. He does not glorify this conflict in anyway, and he leaves you believing that maybe no one really won the war.

This is not a book I would tackle all at once, but maybe keep it by your bedside for those restless nights, although you may find you will not be able to put it down once you pick it up. I reccommend this for someone who knows a bit about the war and wants a good general overview. Someone who has done a lot of background reading may not find it as stimulating, but it is still worth reading.

Martin Gilbert has really achieved something great in this book. He has captured the true horror of WW II, not only from the soldiers stand-point, but also from the view of the millions of civilians who lost their lives. He shows the world the true nature of Hitler's regime. His descriptions of major battles take up about a paragraph each. This is not good for the military historians, but it does show how battle fit into the larger story of genocide and a war against pure evil. All in all, a great read.

Martin Gilbert's day-by-day account of World War Two is not particularly analytical by intent. He lets his day-by-day account tell the story. On a typical day he might write of how a famous battle is developing but also include some event equally important like a British decoding success. During such-and-such a famous battle, Mr. Gilbert will also inform the reader of a large murder of Jews in Lithuania, the Ukraine or Poland or he might detail the success or failure of an Atlantic or North Sea convoy. Gilbert has sifted through the records and given the reader not only the facts but, by revealing the multitude of wicked acts of many of the combatants, he impresses on the reader of the brutality of the conflict.

Although overwhelming in its detail, Gilbert's book brilliantly captures the day-by-day evolution of the war on all fronts, which nicely supplements other, more "themed" presentations (such as Keegan's outstanding book). The two running themes that do emerge from the piling on of detail after detail are: 1) the Germans' relentless persecution of the Jews, despite military setbacks and setbacks in prosecuting the war, and 2) the vital role of the codebreakers in helping win specific battles and, ultimately, the war itself. The book must be read in small doses; its cumulative effect is too depressing.

In this book, Mr. Gilbert presents world war II as seen strictly through a magnifying glass. At first, the minute details of the battles and the German anti-semitic genocide are fascinating. But as the details built up, I began to wonder about the motives of the participants. Its interesting to know which soldiers protested the slaughter of the Jews, or who received an iron cross for which campaign. But in the end, I felt that I knew the wrinkles of every pea and potato thrown into this dish, without knowing if he was making stew or a roast. I wish that he had discussed the overarching strategies and motives of the combatants. I wish that he had discussed civilian's reactions to the war. I wish that he had discussed more of the social phenomenon of the war rather than just the movements and actions of the soldiers.

We are going to Poland. I wanted to research the effect of World War II on the cities and countryside, in order to have a better appreciation as we traveled around. I found what I wanted. Not in as much detail as desired, but enough. What I also found, unexpectedly, was a very well documented and written book, especially concerning the holocaust and all the brutality of the Nazis. I have always been distressed by what happened, but I never imagined it was as bad as it was, even though I knew it was horrible. The Jews were the principle sufferers, but not the only ones. Man's inhumanity to man! How, Why? Discouraging to contemplate the human condition!

I started this book with hopes of seeing an over all picture of WWII from begining to end. What I got was hundreds of pages of 'this many dead from this campaign,' or 'these many dead from that concentration camp.' At first, I was digusted at the Nazi's murdering of Jews and POWs, but after a while, the numbers lost all meaning on me. What I wanted was a book that explained the war in better detail. Throwing tons of satistics at me is not in depth writing in my opinion. I didn't want: 'between September 1st and 13th, 13,000 Poles had died in combat.' I wanted a book that explained how the battles unfolded that resulted in those losses. The book does have its moments form time to time (which barely kept my interest in it as a whole), but more often than not, I found that I was forcing myself to read just so I could get that 'big picture' of the war this book never provides.