World War II [Hardcover]

HP Willmott (Author), Robin Cross (Contributor), Charles Messenger (Contributor), Neil Grant (Contributor), David Welch (Contributor), Michael Barrett (Contributor), Mark Grandstaff (Contributor), Michael G. Paul (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2004

The Second World War was fought on an unprecedented scale and claimed the lives of millions, from soldiers to civilians. Providing a challenging analysis of its causes and momentous consequences, as well as a clear narrative and explanation of the course of the war, World War II examines the objectives and concerns of all the combatants in one of the most deadly conflicts of the 20th Century. Approximately 40 maps and 500 images give a complete picture of the conflict across its many theaters - the Eastern and Western fronts, Scandinavia and Italy, the Balkans and the Mediterranean, and China and Southeast Asia, as well as the Western Pacific.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The book jacket describes the war as history’s most dramatic event, but there’s very little drama in this lavishly illustrated, informative but rarely incisive survey. Military historians Willmott and Messenger and journalist Cross provide a comprehensive account of the war’s major campaigns and diplomatic initiatives, highlighted with brief sidebars on innumerable special topics (from the Holocaust to war movies) and a wealth of helpful timelines and color maps. Unfortunately, their broad but shallow treatment lacks the interpretive framework that would shape the fortunes of war into a comprehensible story. Their observations on the Allied and Axis war economies and the resulting disparity in numbers and supplies are well-chosen but scattered throughout the book in small asides, so that this decisive aspect of the war remains in the background. Other controversies, like Eisenhower’s "Broad Front" strategy in northwest Europe, the divided American command strategy in the Pacific and the effectiveness and morality of the Allied bombing campaigns against German and Japanese cities, are touched on but hardly explored. The primary text is largely a dry narrative of military operations, with the provisioning of pathos and atmospherics left to the hundreds of photos of ravaged towns and exhausted soldiers; weapons buffs, at least, will derive some pleasure from the many color portraits, complete with performance specs, of the contending armies’ airplanes, tanks and rifles. While useful as a barebones chronicle of the war and a compendium of associated lore and visuals, the book lacks the sort of focus and insight that would transform the conflict’s pageant of devastation and woe into meaningful history.
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About the Author

Robin Cross has written on many aspects of WW II. He's the author of Bombers, The Citadel: The Battle of Kursk, & Unsung Heroines.

Charles Messenger served in the Royal Tank Regiment and has written several books on the war, including The Second World War in the West.

H.P. Willmott is a widely published military historian and the author of DK's World War I.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT (September 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756605210
• ISBN-13: 978-0756605216
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 10.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where Is the Pacific War?, January 8, 2005

By 

Anonymous (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World War II (Hardcover)

This is a well-illustrated overview of World War II if your main interest is in the European and African campaigns. Unfortunately, like so many other books about the war, the Pacific campaign is treated as an afterthought. In this book the Pacific rates about 20% of the text. For the Europe-Africa campaigns this book is a four. For the Pacific campaign it is about one-and-a-half.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Causes and Consequence, March 20, 2005

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World War II (Hardcover)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. ~Marianne Williamson

It seems impossible to eradicate the idea of war from our daily existence. War (somewhere on the planet) seems to be a part of daily life, as real as the internal wars of the soul. How can the world ever know peace when we cannot even find ways to be at peace in our homes or in our own communities? It seems we are always fighting an internal war and that war is represented in the experience of physical war.

H.P. Willmott, Robin Cross and Charles Messenger explain the reasons behind the most dramatic event in human history. They show how the shock waves of World Wwar II still resonate in our world today. As they analyze the causes of the war and the consequences, we may be able to learn from the past to prevent future destruction.

When I read a book like World War II, it does awaken me to the reality of what mankind is capable of in regards to fighting for freedom and trying to suppress freedom. There are shocking accounts of man's cruelty and contrasting accounts of those who would seek to free mankind from tyranny.

This book is divided into nine chapters:

The Path to War
War Begins in Europe
Germany Triumphant
The War Becomes Global
The Initiative Changes Hands
The Axis on the Defensive
The Allies' Great Offensives
The Final Battles
A New World

World War II is not a calm read and you may find yourself becoming angry or sickened while reading about the atrocities of mankind. Perhaps it is necessary to feel that sense of revulsion in order to make better decisions in the future. There are also interesting moments where pictures show how soldiers adapted to fight in brutal conditions like the picture of the Finnish ski soldier or the pictures of beach landings. The stories of survival will give you a new respect for the soldiers fighting for freedom, while the stories of cruelty and brutality towards human beings will leave you sickened. The hope on the faces of liberated POWs with emaciated bodies and children starving to death because they had to give up food so soldiers could stay in the war makes you think about war on a much deeper level.

"...it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, on of those scorching, howling, bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights in Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell... only men endure." Pg. 138

Throughout this well illustrated book, you will find quotes, illustrations of propaganda, stories of heroism, notes from soldiers on the battle field and observers of the destruction, pictures of weapons, timelines, pictures of battle scenes all over the world and maps showing the advancement of various armies involved in conflicts. One of the most shocking pictures in this book does not even contain soldiers at war, it shows a million pairs of shoes at an extermination camp.

Some of the more interesting topics include the making of penicillin, how POWs survived by making their own sandals, charts showing war losses, information on the changes occurring in society throughout the war, how civilians reacted to the war, children being sent to the countryside, the role of women in the war, why owning a radio was forbidden in many countries, why household items were turned into armaments or other goods for the armed forces and the food soldiers ate in contrast with what the civilians had to eat. My main interest while reading this book seems to be to see how human beings survived such a great terror and destruction of their daily lives.

The section on Wartime Cinema is also of interest as it shows how humor lightened the mood of the world and how movies helped to give hope to the world's oppressed. It also shows how everything can be used for good or evil, because there are instances where movies definitely encouraged evil actions with a message of hate.

The final chapter shows how the individuals started to rebuild the shattered world and the authors explore the differences between the two world wars and why the second was a continuation of the first.

My thought about war is that it will continue to occur until humans spend more time loving and less time hating and being selfish. That is the only way the world can know peace. The irony is however very apparent, because when we love freedom, we have to fight for freedom. Freedom itself has never been free.

~The Rebecca Review

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Pictures Covering the Beginning to the End., October 20, 2004

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: World War II (Hardcover)

When I was a kid used to produce these beutifully illustrated books about World War II. I haven't seen one of them in years. Now this book has come out. I at first thought that it was a reprint of one of the old books, but it isn't. I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of WW II photographs from all fronts. But in reading this book, I didn't recognize any of the pictures as having been used before.

The book isn't heavy on strategy. For instance there is a discussion on the lack of food in Japan by the fall of 1944 due to heavy merchant shipping losses. This was not discussed in terms of the lack of emphasis on anti-submarine forces and failure to adapt the convoy system as was done in the Atlantic. This in turn was related to the Japanese concepts of supporting the fighting forces but ignoring the mere commercial side. This is a minor point, there are other books that go into strategy. The pictures that are on that page more than make up for this lack.

All in all, an excellent book of a type not seen so often any more.