From the Pan Military Classics Series comes a hugely accomplished, definitive account of one of history's most pivotal wars.
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"Sobering. . . . A global view presented with remarkable clarity."
--"The Boston Globe"
"Probably the best account of the Eastern Front we shall see until President Putin relaxes his newly imposed restrictions on foreign access to the files. . . . Bellamy has made a tremendous contribution to the record of Russia's struggle, for which future historians will owe a debt."
--"The Sunday Times" (London)
"Bellamy's treatment is authoritative, his judgments thorough and exacting, and his prose robust."
--The "Daily Telegraph" (London)
--"The Boston Globe"
"Probably the best account of the Eastern Front we shall see until President Putin relaxes his newly imposed restrictions on foreign access to the files. . . . Bellamy has made a tremendous contribution to the record of Russia's struggle, for which future historians will owe a debt."
--"The Sunday Times" (London)
"Bellamy's treatment is authoritative, his judgments thorough and exacting, and his prose robust."
--The "Daily Telegraph" (London)
Book Description
Absolute War tells the story of the greatest and most terrible land-air conflict of all time: the war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. There have been many individual accounts of particular moments in the vicious war between the Nazi regime and the Sovet behemoth, but none which sets out to tell the full and dreadful story of that absolute war: absolute because both sides aimed to 'exterminate the opponent, to destroy his political existence' and total because it was fought by all elements of society, not simply the armed forces, but civilians - men, women, children - too. Chris Bellamy, Profesor of Military Science at Cranfield University, is one of the wolrd's leading experts on this subject and has been working on this book for almost a decade. It benefits from his remarkable insight into strategic issues as well as exhaustive research in hitherto unopened Russian archives. It is the definitive study of what the Soviets called - and what their fifteen successor states still call - the Great Patriotic War.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
77 of 81 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book aims to present the Second World War from the Soviet perspective by using documents from formerly closed Soviet archives and memoirs only recently published in their full length (ie those written by Zhukov and Rokossovsky, respectively).
While the non-Russian reader can only welcome such an attempt, Prof. Bellamy's book suffers from some major shortcomings, one of which is the apparent inability of its author to read German language sources. Some errors (German ambassador von der Schulenburg is misspelled as "Schulenberg" throughout the book) could have been avoided.
But the major shortcomings are in the material presented for the Soviet side. Bellamy avoids discussing the Soviet pre-war military strategy and doctrine in a separate chapter, even though he rightly writes about the entirely offensive deployment and strategy vis-à-vis Germany. When military strategy is discussed, however, he erroneously attributes the Soviet's doctrine on the eve of the war to Svechin ("Strategy") instead of to Vladimir Triandafillov ("The nature of operations of modern armies") and Isserson.
Another major topic that is missing in this book is the Soviet Order of battle on June 22, 1941. Strangely enough, the well known German Order of Battle is given in the book, but no details about the Soviet deployment along the German, Hungarian and Romanian border. This is a very disappointing fact, especially because one would have wanted to compare the striking similarities in the deployment of the opposing forces. For very detailed information about the Soviet Order of Battle I can only refer the reader to the detailed works of Charles Sharp and Craig Crofoot for the ground forces and to Christer Bergström's about the Soviet Air Forces.... Read more ›
While the non-Russian reader can only welcome such an attempt, Prof. Bellamy's book suffers from some major shortcomings, one of which is the apparent inability of its author to read German language sources. Some errors (German ambassador von der Schulenburg is misspelled as "Schulenberg" throughout the book) could have been avoided.
But the major shortcomings are in the material presented for the Soviet side. Bellamy avoids discussing the Soviet pre-war military strategy and doctrine in a separate chapter, even though he rightly writes about the entirely offensive deployment and strategy vis-à-vis Germany. When military strategy is discussed, however, he erroneously attributes the Soviet's doctrine on the eve of the war to Svechin ("Strategy") instead of to Vladimir Triandafillov ("The nature of operations of modern armies") and Isserson.
Another major topic that is missing in this book is the Soviet Order of battle on June 22, 1941. Strangely enough, the well known German Order of Battle is given in the book, but no details about the Soviet deployment along the German, Hungarian and Romanian border. This is a very disappointing fact, especially because one would have wanted to compare the striking similarities in the deployment of the opposing forces. For very detailed information about the Soviet Order of Battle I can only refer the reader to the detailed works of Charles Sharp and Craig Crofoot for the ground forces and to Christer Bergström's about the Soviet Air Forces.... Read more ›
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read many books on the eastern front conflict I found this book fresh and yet somehow very familiar. Nothing too new here but the style of the author means the 700 odd pages zip by as the various phases of the conflict are explained and expanded on with plenty of diagrams and maps. No phase is as given as much space as say Clarkes' Barbarssa or Beevors' Stalingrad but then when covering the whole campaign that would be asking something. All in all a great read, newcomers to the conflict will learn loads, those just interested in the period who have read other works will not learn too much new but will come back to this book as it really does a good job of covering a lot of ground.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Mark Klobas
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
By any measure, the clash between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was the most titanic conflict between two nations ever fought, as well as the decisive front of the Second World War. Yet the Eastern Front has been given comparatively short shrift in most English-language histories of the Second World War, largely due to a combination of politics (the Cold War and the inaccessibility of Soviet-era archives) and a Western-centric bias. These issues make Chris Bellamy's history of the Soviet war effort a welcome addition to the literature on the war. Taking advantage of the greater availability of Soviet sources, he provides a fresh account of the Eastern Front that prompts some revision of the traditional Western understanding of the war there.
To do so, Bellamy begins by broadening his scope. He begins not with the launch of Operation Barbarossa, but with the Soviet participation in the invasion of Poland in September 1939. The inclusion of this and the subsequent "Winter War" between the Soviet Union and Finland the following year are key to one of his arguments, that the Red Army were already making the tactical and operational transformations which would make them such a formidable fighting force later in the war. While acknowledging the brutalities of the Stalinist regime, he asserts that the Soviet regime was far more efficient and effective in mobilizing for the war effort than their Nazi counterparts, an argument echoed in other recent studies such as Richard Overy's The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.... Read more ›
To do so, Bellamy begins by broadening his scope. He begins not with the launch of Operation Barbarossa, but with the Soviet participation in the invasion of Poland in September 1939. The inclusion of this and the subsequent "Winter War" between the Soviet Union and Finland the following year are key to one of his arguments, that the Red Army were already making the tactical and operational transformations which would make them such a formidable fighting force later in the war. While acknowledging the brutalities of the Stalinist regime, he asserts that the Soviet regime was far more efficient and effective in mobilizing for the war effort than their Nazi counterparts, an argument echoed in other recent studies such as Richard Overy's The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.... Read more ›
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By tn_espoo
Format:Paperback
Good: A thorough presentation of the events leading to war, and the ideologies and personalities involved. A good overview to non-initiated. Although there are other books written with similar reach, most of them have been written before the opening of Soviet archives and are thus deprived of some important sources.
Bad: A somewhat chatty writing style, not very useful maps. A couple of gross factual errors regarding the Finnish participation in the conflict left me doubting the accuracy of the entire book. Bellamy takes the estimate of Finnish casualties in the Winter War from Soviet sources, and based on that hardly neutral source he claims that almost twice as many Finns were killed in that war as very thorough Finnish official statistics say (Russians say 48,000 and Finns 26,000). The name, date, and the place of death is known for almost all Finnish casualties, most of the bodies were brought home for burial, and there is no way 22,000 extra deaths could have been hidden.
Bellamy also says that in 1941 there were 150,000 Finnish troops mobilized against Russia, when in fact general mobilization had almost been completed by June 22nd when Russians airplanes attacked Finland and by July Finland fielded 470,000 troops (from a population of 3,7 million).
Bad: A somewhat chatty writing style, not very useful maps. A couple of gross factual errors regarding the Finnish participation in the conflict left me doubting the accuracy of the entire book. Bellamy takes the estimate of Finnish casualties in the Winter War from Soviet sources, and based on that hardly neutral source he claims that almost twice as many Finns were killed in that war as very thorough Finnish official statistics say (Russians say 48,000 and Finns 26,000). The name, date, and the place of death is known for almost all Finnish casualties, most of the bodies were brought home for burial, and there is no way 22,000 extra deaths could have been hidden.
Bellamy also says that in 1941 there were 150,000 Finnish troops mobilized against Russia, when in fact general mobilization had almost been completed by June 22nd when Russians airplanes attacked Finland and by July Finland fielded 470,000 troops (from a population of 3,7 million).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Eastern View of WW2
This is an interesting book looking at the war from the Eastern European view. Most books are written with a western European or American outlook, this looks at the brutality on... Read more
Published 4 months ago by atticusfinch1048
4.0 out of 5 stars
encyclopaedic
an encyclopaedic narrative of the Soviet-German War 1941-1945 - detailed, well-written and superlatively researched. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Duncan S
5.0 out of 5 stars
a detailed account of the eastern front
first off i don't understand why some people here view this as a book that is missing something because i found this one of the most informative books i have read on the war... Read more
Published 23 months ago by john
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine account of the Soviet war effort
Chris Bellamy, Professor of Military Science and Doctrine at Cranfield University, has written a thorough history of the war on the Eastern front. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2009 by William Podmore
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting overview
Very interesting book in a very readable style. I found the maps a bit hard to follow though. It certainly encouraged me to read more about the topic.
Published on 9 Mar 2009 by Mr. Desmond Murphy
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not sure he had time to finish this properly
This is all in all an excellent history book if you want a more detailed picture of the Great Patriotic War, at the level of strategy, politics and economics. Read more
Published on 11 Feb 2009 by John Ferngrove
5.0 out of 5 stars
exploring new territory
Chris Bellamy's 'Absolute War' fills up a tremendous 'white spot' in our knowledge of the Hitler/Stalin-conflict from 1941-'45: the workings of the Soviet-Russian leadership. Read more
Published on 28 July 2008 by W R Visser
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough, but lacking a human touch
First of all let me say that this book is a huge achievement. The information packed into its pages is very impressive. Read more
Published on 11 July 2008 by SAP
4.0 out of 5 stars
A limited but good addition to Eastern Front literature
Chris Bellamy has written an interesting account of the Eastern front, although to a large degree limited to 1941 and 1942, that at least is what makes up the bulk of this almost... Read more
Published on 28 Feb 2008 by T. Kunikov
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