Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945From one of our finest military historians, a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal consequences. World War II involved tens of millions of soldiers and cost sixty million lives—an average of twenty-seven thousand a day. For thirty-five years, Max Hastings has researched and written about different aspects of the war. Now, for the first time, he gives us a magnificent, single-volume history of the entire war. Through his strikingly detailed stories of everyday people—of soldiers, sailors and airmen; British housewives and Indian peasants; SS killers and the citizens of Leningrad, some of whom resorted to cannibalism during the two-year siege; Japanese suicide pilots and American carrier crews—Hastings provides a singularly intimate portrait of the world at war. He simultaneously traces the major developments—Hitler’s refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union until it was too late; Stalin’s ruthlessness in using his greater population to wear down the German army; Churchill’s leadership in the dark days of 1940 and 1941; Roosevelt’s steady hand before and after the United States entered the war—and puts them in real human context. Hastings also illuminates some of the darker and less explored regions under the war’s penumbra, including the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland, during which the Finns fiercely and surprisingly resisted Stalin’s invading Red Army; and the Bengal famine in 1943 and 1944, when at least one million people died in what turned out to be, in Nehru’s words, “the final epitaph of British rule” in India. Remarkably informed and wide-ranging, Inferno is both elegantly written and cogently argued. Above all, it is a new and essential understanding of one of the greatest and bloodiest events of the twentieth century. |
Contents
CHAPTER THREE Blitzkriegs in the West | |
CHAPTER FOUR Britain Alone | |
CHAPTER FIVE The Mediterranean | |
CHAPTER SIX Barbarossa | |
CHAPTER SEVEN Moscow Saved Leningrad Starved | |
CHAPTEREIGHT America Embattled | |
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Asian Fronts | |
Jungle Bashing and Island Hopping | |
High Hopes Sour Fruits | |
CHAPTER NINETEEN War in the | |
CHAPTER TWENTY Victims | |
CHAPTER TWENTYONE Europe Becomes a Battlefield | |
Defying Fate | |
CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE Germany Besieged | |
CHAPTER NINE Japans Season of Triumph | |
CHAPTER TEN Swings of Fortune | |
CHAPTERELEVEN The British at | |
Russia in 1942 | |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Living with | |
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Out of Africa | |
Russia in 1943 | |
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Divided Empires | |
CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR The Fall of the Third Reich | |
CHAPTER TWENTYFIVE Japan Prostrate | |
CHAPTER TWENTYSIX Victors and Vanquished | |
Acknowledgements | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
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achieved advance Afrika Korps aircraft airmen American Armageddon files armoured Army’s artillery assault attack Australian Axis battle battlefield became began Berlin bomber bombs Britain British Burma campaign carrier casualties Churchill Churchill’s civilians commander committed convoy crews cruiser death defeat defenders deployed destroyers diary divisions East enemy Europe evacuation fighters fighting fire fleet forces fought France French front German Germany’s gunner guns Hitler ibid infantry invaders invasion Italian Italy Japan Japanese Jews June killed land later launched Luftwaffe military million months Moscow nation naval Navy’s Nazi never night NKVD North numbers offensive officer operations Pacific panzer percent pilots planes Poland Polish prisoners Red Army resistance retreat Royal Navy Russian September ships shot soldiers Soviet Soviet Union Stalin Stalingrad strategic struggle submarine suffered surrender tanks torpedo troops U-boat U.S. Army U.S. Navy United Vasily Grossman victory Wehrmacht Western Allies wounded wrote