- Hardcover: 544 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan; illustrated edition edition (3 Nov 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0333692853
- ISBN-13: 978-0333692851
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 16 x 5.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
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Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory
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More About the Author
Product Description
Mail on Sunday
'Davies challenges the myths of good and evil that colour popular perceptions of war'
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
Norman Davies' brilliant new history of the Second World War
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Towards an objective perspective of WWII,
By
This review is from: Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (Paperback)
Norman Davies had already made himself my favourite historian with his mighty Europe: A History and majestic The Isles: A History both of which provided pictures bigger than all my historical reading to that date. How many people realise that the Polish-Lithuanian empires extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea in late medieval times. Nuf said.
This history of WWII is in my opinion, his most important book to date, because it aims to place the first real dent in the deeply flawed mythologies that virtually all particpant and victim nations have inherited as their 'History' of WWII. The fact that this is something that needs to be done now, today, that might have genuine consequences for how future Geo-politics pans out, particularly with respect to relations between Europe and Russia, makes this more than just armchair historical reading. The book makes explicit what was beginning to become apparent to me through my own various readings around WWII. That WWII was essentially an apocalyptic battle between two of the most brutal tyrranies devised by man, and that the contribution made by the allied democracies, whilst being respectable were not the decisive, good and just contributions that they have bought their children up to believe. Their intervention merely ensured that one of the two tyrranies would emerge as the absolute victor, and would be allowed to continue its programmes of nightmare oppression for the next 50 years of the cold war, before collapsing under its own internal contradictions. It also makes the point, for me not forcefully enough, that none of the protaginists of the war started out with clean hands. The empires of the colonial powers were all based on slaughter and maintained on the threat of slaughter through superior technology and wealth. Apologists for the British Empire like to tell us of its splendid achievements for the populations concerened and to point at those places where its departure collapsed into conflict. That is not the point. The colonies were justified on the basis of outrageous chauvinism and all populations rejoiced at the departure of their masters, whereupon the business of normal history resumed. Early 20th Century US adventurism in central America, and more particularly the Philipines makes shocking reading for those who would care to follow it up. It is a story of million plus deaths, concentration camps and deeply cynical media manipulation, to ensure the folks back home saw it all from a righteous light. The story makes Roosevelts opprobium at the British Empire, as represented by Churchill, a cynical political manipulation with an eye to future US dominance, rather than the idealistic posture on behalf of American public opinion as usually portrayed. The real victors of WWII are the generations of the western democracies who have grown up to enjoy freedoms so unprecedented that they cannot imagine alternatives. The real losers were their couterparts left to the tender mercies of the Soviets. Each time I read a text on WWII I swear it will be the last because I find it so sad and harrowing. But it is clear that, 60 years on, the objective account, not coloured by nationalistic mythologies, has yet to emerge. So I guess there is more painful and harrowing reading to come for many of us yet. Anyone unconvinced that the scale of the Nazi-Soviet conflict, made all else in Europe a side show should just try Googling WWII Eastern Front. Stalin put it best - 'Britain provided the time, America the money and Russia the Blood'.
63 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A battle for the truth.,
By
This review is from: Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (Hardcover)
This book addresses a basic but to date un-remedied defect consistently present in most books written about World War Two. Now that in excess of sixty years have passed since the war's end fresh, un-biased books on this most complicated and emotional of subjects are still few and far between. In particular from an English speaking perspective, one is still given the strong impression that Nazi Germany was beaten in equal measure by the combined efforts of Britain, America and the Soviet Union together with its associated allies such as the Poles, French and others. The reality is a good deal more surprising than such an orthodox view would suggest and to this end Norman Davies comprehensively and in a very readable manner dispels such myths. The book is also multifaceted in its perspective giving a comprehensive view of the war as fought in Europe, (the book is not an account of the Pacific conflict). It is rare for one book to cover the catalogue of World War Two issues documented here, it is rarer still to find such matters written about in a compelling, accessible yet scholarly way. In this regard, the book is a towering achievement and must have presented a massive task to compile. As you progress through the book, Davies repeatedly demonstrates that in essence the lion's share of fighting was done in the Eastern Front where both sides employed the most barbaric of practices to destroy their enemy and to compel their men (and women)to fight under the most grisly and inhuman of circumstances; and where on balance the Soviet Union under Stalin was prepared to go further than anyone else to gain the upper hand. One is therefore faced with accepting that World War Two whilst perceived by most people as a battle between good and evil was in reality a battle between an extreme and criminally culpable Nazi Germany and an even more extreme and more criminally culpable Stalinist Soviet Union that ultimately resolved the conflict. The contribution of others, such as Britain and the US whilst significant was not ultimately decisive. As a result of secrecy, clever propaganda, an unwillingness to criticise an ally and a general naivete of those in positions of influence in Britain and the US, Soviet criminality remained unexposed for decades and even to this day is not properly appreciated. Such revelations when properly explained as they have been by Davies simply take your breath away. On a rare occasion a book deserves something more than five stars. This is one such rare occasion.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fair account of history,
By
This review is from: Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (Hardcover)
This is yet another excellent book by Mr. Davies. You will not find in it too many details on tactics, strategies and military operations, however you will find facts that have often escaped the attention of Europeans from the western part of our continents - that the Second World War was really an unfinished business from the first one, that it was, first of all - a clash of two totalitarian regimes, that have enslaved its nations, not only physically but also mentally. A sad account of systems that caused pain and suffering not only to other respective nations but also to its own people (especially Soviets). This book shows as well, how the West left East Europe to Soviet gangsters in the end.
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