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98 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Answer to the Second World War, September 28, 1999
This review is from: Why the Allies Won (Paperback)
Historian Richard Overy sets out to answer what is one of the most important questions of the Twentieth Centuries, why the Allied Powers, and not the Axis, won the greatest conflict of all time. Overy emphasizes that the outcome was not a foregone conclusion, as Western Liberal societies have argued since 1945. Rather, the conflict was extremely close, and in the years from 1942-44, the war could have gone either way. Overy divides his analysis into two types of factors: the actual combat, including campaigns and tactics, and underlying factors, such as economics, resources, and leadership. Overy does more than simply rehash other historians' arguments while synthesizing them into one coherent work. For example, he maintains that the Eastern Front was the most important single front in determining the outcome of the war. At Stalingrad the Soviets won not only by sheer numbers, but by tactical superiority as well. But Stalingrad did not decide the outcome of the campaign. The German lines stabilized in 1943, and had Hitler not wasted all his heavy armor at Kursk, stalemate may have ensued. Overy also discussed the Anglo-American air war, which had little impact in 1942-43, but when the allied forces targeted the German industrial areas, they pulverized the German munitions manufacturing, so that in early 1945 Albert Speer conceded the war was over from his point of view. The sea war in the Atlantic is also examined. Germany's U-Boats nearly strangled England in the early stages, striking American and British ships at will. But American technology and ingenuity changed the tide, forcing the U-Boats to retreat after taking massive losses. All of these campaigns were close affairs, in which the allied forces made better choices than their Axis counterparts. The second main area of Overy's analysis are the underlying, macro-level factors. Overy discusses the internal problems in the Axis nations in terms of economics and resource mobilization. He argues that Germany in fact had logistical problems it did not solve, despite their reputation for engineering genuis. Furthermore, Hitler's "super weapons" like the V-1 and V-2, wasted valuable German resources which were better used on conventional arms. Japan was hobbled by the rift between the army and navy, which did not coordinate as well as they should have. Both Axis nations were also affected by easy victory in the early stages of the war, which prevented them from developing both new tactics and new weapons. Germanys' qualitative advantage in arms was reversed by 1944, when even Soviet weaponry was more advanced. Leadership mattered as well. Overy is not a great admirer of Winston Churchill, but views him as the right man in a time of war. Hitler on the other hand, embodied poor leadership and hurt the German war effort through his stubborness and inept decision-making. Finally, Overy makes the stunning assertion that morality is a major factor in determining the outcomes of war. While the Axis populations were unsure of their cause, the Allies were certain of theirs, and because of it, fought harder and better. It is an original and powerful assertion which I hope will be examine elsewhere as well. The book focuses on the war with Germany, and the war with Japan is relegated to a minor role. One hopes that perhaps Overy will update his book to include more about Japan. Perhaps the only unsatisfactory section is the prologue, in which Overy gives his own interpretation of the origins of the war. His explanation focuses on the depression and the Axis powers' quest for economic security, which they believed could only be accomplished through violence. His explanation leaves out power explanations favored by Realist thinkers. But this is really not the focus of the book. For what it deals with it is not only a definitive answer, but also well-written and engrossing to read.
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful book., October 4, 2000
This review is from: Why the Allies Won (Paperback)
This is an interesting work, and it helps one to rethink questions about the war one would have thought settled. On paper the military forces of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union vastly overwhelm those of Germany, Italy and Japan. One would think that military victory was assured. Richard Overy questions these assumptions in this useful book. After all from 1940 to 1944 Germany had most of the resouces of continental Europe to draw upon. If the gap between the two sides seems so vast, it is partially because Germany did not take full advantage of those resources when it could have crushed the other sides. Overy provides particular attention on the battle for the seas when it appeared up until mid 1943 that the Axis might cut the lifeline across the Atlantic, and when the battle of Midway turned for the Americans on the space of a few lucky minutes. He discusses such major events as D-Day and gives due attention to the vital battle for Russia, without which Allied victory would have seemed impossible. Crucial to this account is the economic side, however, and here Overy challenges two important scholarly opinions about the war. The first view, which developed in the sixties, looked at the relatively low levels of arms that the Germans produced, theorized that German war production was limited because of a need to placate German living standards. Because of this restriction Germany turned towards the devastating and hopefully quick stratgey of blitzkerig. The second view argued that aerial bombing was of limited success because German war production still rose from 1942 to 1945. Overy, however, argues that Hitler did not sacrifice guns for butter but always wanted a fierce military regime. The problem for him was that armaments levels were puzzingly low, barely keeping steady with Britain and France. The reason was not any lack of technical skill, since the Germans made many remarkable innovations during the war. Instead the German economy was not a well organized machine, but a set of dueling quasi-feudal principalities, where quality control ran amuck and where local party and company privileges hampered the rise of mass production. The contrast with American production is quite striking, and also with Soviet production, whose evacuation of much of its factory plant under the most desperate circumstances is one of the great untold stories of the war. It was only by 1942 that people like Albert Speer recognized the problem, and sought to correct it. Had it not been for the massive bombing, Overy argues, Speer's efforts to raise production would have been much more successful. There are many other interesting insights in the book. Overy, contrary to a rather dense reviewer in Commentary, does not reduce the remarkable performance of the Soviet army and people to NKVD terror, but to a remarkable genuine courage on their own behalf. The portraits of the leaders are also compelling, with Churchill being criticized for his romantic and often poor military judgement from Norway to France to Crete to Singapore. Stalin's military judgement gets high praise from conservative Anglo-American military officers, while there is a fine sketch of George Marshall, the greatest general America ever had, who never actually fought on a battlefield. There are some comments one should quibble about, such as Overy relying on James Bacque's tendentious Other Losses, but overall this is a fine book, and it has one of the finest final lines of any work of history this decade.
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38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Overy's Book Is a Breath of Fresh Air in Discussing WWII, May 17, 2000
This review is from: Why the Allies Won (Paperback)
Richard Overy's excellent book takes a careful and painstaking look at both how and why the Aliies won what he contends was a much more closely fought war than traditional treatments of the matter would have us believe. He cites several issues which were crucial; the war on the seas, primarily in the Atlantic, where the balance of terror for some time seemed to be tipping in favor of the Axis forces, the air bombing war over the skies of Europe, which holstered squadrons of Axis planes into a defense of the Fatherland, and removed them from conduct of a more vigorous air campaign against the Russians; the miscalculation concerning the ability of the Soviets to sustain their battle lines and to even accelerate the pace of the war on the Eastern front. In addition Overy cites the astonishing productive and manufacturing capability of the Americans, Canadians, British, and even the Soviets, who outworked and outproduced the Germans gun for gun, plane for plane, and tank for tank during the darkest and most difficult moments of the war; the constant and confusing interference with weapon selection and production by the upper reaches of the Nazi hierarchy. Finally, the philosophical sense shared by the Allies of fighting for the right, which Overy argues persuasively informed Allied forces with a sense of moral courage that seemed to imbue them with a fighting ferocity the Axis found difficult to rival. This is a great book by a very notable author, and one every respectable denizen of WWII history should have on his or her shelf.
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