There are many alternatives if you are looking for books about WW2. Standard world war 2 account plus personal corresp It’s a salutary reminder that megalomaniacs, such as Hitler and Stalin, can galvanise such monumental horrors in the 20th century and depressing that people are still enduring these tyrants and horrors on Europe’s doorstep. It’s not a book to be ‘enjoyed’ as the sheer number of people killed was enormous and the devastation of parts of the world catastrophic for many years after the war, however I finished the book feeling humbled by what the generation before mine had endured. The failings, mistakes and barbarities of all the protagonists are revealed, often with hindsight as the author acknowledges. This is no jingoistic telling of WWII from the British perspective. The basic details of the war are well-known but where this book excels is in combining the global/national facts with extensive material from letters and diaries that more than anything evoke what it was really like on the ground, in the air, and on and under the seas. This is a very long book, but I was gripped throughout by the fast-paced narrative that illuminated the horrors of war and the extraordinary heroism of the men and women who put up with unspeakable conditions in all the theatres of war. With the aid of hindsight, and Max Hastings's insight, some of Hitler's decisions beggar belief - Thank God! This excellent book makes it very clear that a German victory was a distinct possibility. I shudder to think what our lives would be like today had he won.
The book is rich in quotations from indiviuals involved which bring home the sheer scale of the misery experienced by millions and from which I, secure in my Devon village for much of the time, was largely protected.I very strongly recommend this to anyone, who like me, lived through the war, but also for a younger generation who I find are woefully ignorant about it - why it occurred, how it progressed and, above all, how the outcome could have been very different had better decision been made, especially by Hitler. This has been in my library for some time but I have only just got around to listening to it - why I can't imagine! I was a child during the war and experienced some bombing, rationing and so on but it was all quite exciting and I had no idea how close we came to losing, how ill prepared and ill equipped we were or how much of the propaganda was far from accurate and designed, reasonably effectively as far as I can recall, to keep up our spirits.
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