Other editions of book The Second World War

Praised as “the best military historian of our generation” by Tom Clancy, John Keegan reconsiders his masterful study of World War II, The Second World War, with a new foreword Keegan examines each theater of the war, focusing on five crucial battles and offering new insights into the distinctive methods and motivations of modern warfare. In eloquent, perceptive analyses of the airborne battle of Crete, the carrier battle of Midway, the tank battle of Falaise, the city battle of Berlin, and the amphibious battle of Okinawa, Keegan illuminates the strategic dilemmas faced by the leaders and the consequences of their decisions on the fighting men and the course of the war as a whole. An extraordinary, definitive history, The Second World War will be required reading for generations to come."The Second World War merits the acceptance as the standard work that it will surely recieve." -The Washington Post"If you want to know how it happened, read Keegan's thoughtful and elegant prose." -Los Angeles Times

In this comprehensive history, John Keegan explores both the technical and the human impact of the greatest war of all time. He focuses on five crucial battles and offers new insights into the distinctive methods and motivations of modern warfare. In knowledgable, perceptive analysis of the airborne battle of Crete, the carrier battle of Midway, the tank battle of Falaise, the city battle of Berlin, and the amphibious battle of Okinawa, Keegan illuminates the strategic dilemmas faced by the leaders and the consequences of their decisions on the fighting men and the course of the war as a whole.

By the author of "The Price of Admiralty", this book approaches the war from a thematic and periodic standpoint. The course of the war is divided into six passages and attached to each is an analytical narrative of a battle, which exemplifies a mode of warfare special to this war, such as city sieges, an air battle, an airborne operation, an aircraft carrier battle, a tank battle and an amphibious landing. The author takes as his starting point the outcome of the First World War, and what it meant in particular for the defeated nations, and how the developed world reacted to its first experience of mass warfare. He surveys the strategic positioning of all the major combatants to summarize the strategic progress of the war. In addition all the major ancillary activities to which the war gave rise are discussed: war supply, war production, strategic bombing, occupation and repression, espionage and resistance, and the secret weapons programmes.