Customer Reviews

World War II

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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

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.

There is less coverage on the Pacific War, which was a major factor in WW2. The atomic bombs were dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima which ended WW2, not elsewhere, am I right??!
It seems as if the authors think that the Pacific War is not important or does not belong to WW2...heh!!
I have been to Nagasaki and Hiroshima and would like to know more about the Pacific War/theatre.

Many pictorial histories of WWII are little more than picture books, held together with some text, but this book is much more that this. In my opinion, it is an excellent summary history of WWII, in addition to being an excellent pictorial history. It is divided into 9 sections that starts with "the path to war", and ends with "a new world". In between it covers all the theaters of the war and all the aspects of the war; the fighting, the home fronts, the tactics and most of the battles, including many reasonably obscure ones, such operations in the Dodecanese (islands in the Aegean occupied by the British and then captured by the Germans). It not only discusses all the weapons used (supplemented with many pictures), but also gives space to topics such as wartime cinema, including Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", as well documentaries and dramas. It provides details on such diverse topics as the losses of Japanese shipping and the making of penicillin. There are timelines and summaries of events such as the German-Soviet conflict, allied bombing of Germany, the sea war against Germany and the sea war against Japan, the Asia and Pacific Campaigns, the Sicilian and Italian Campaign, partisan resistance in the Balkans,... The book contains numerous color battle maps, tabular data, capsule biographies of important generals and political leaders, and much more. The book is in color, printed on high gloss paper. I rate this as one of the best pictorial histories that I have seen and I also rate it as a good summary of all aspects of WWII. This is a five star book in all aspects.

More of a coffee table reference book than a book that can be read with any type of continuity. Nice illustrations.