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The Second World Wars
How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won
A definitive account of World War II by America’s preeminent military historian
World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Never before had a war been fought on so many diverse landscapes and in so many different ways, from rocket attacks in London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya.
The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war’s origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.
An authoritative new history of astonishing breadth, The Second World Wars offers a stunning reinterpretation of history’s deadliest conflict.
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reader reviews
Praise
A Kirkus Best Book of 2017
"The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson is breathtakingly magisterial: How can Mr. Hanson make so much we thought we knew so fresh and original?"—Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, "What Political Readers Read in 2017"
"Lively
and proactive, full of the kind of novel perceptions that can make a familiar
subject interesting again."—New York Times Book Review
"[The Second
World Wars] is written in an energetic and engaging style. Mr.
Hanson provides more than enough interesting and original points to make this
book essential reading."—Wall Street Journal
"The
Second World Wars is an outstanding work of historical
interpretation. It is impossible to do justice to such a magnificent book in a
short review. Given the vast quantities of ink expended on accounts of this
great conflict, one would think that there was not much more left to say.
Hanson proves that this belief is wrong. His fresh examination of World War II
cements his reputation as a military historian of the first order."—National Review
"[The
Second World Wars] is a brilliant and very original and readable work by a
great military historian and contemporary commentator."—New Criterion
"An ingenious, always provocative analysis of history's most lethal war."—Kirkus
"[Hanson's] organizational approach allows him to isolate and
highlight observations that may surprise even some well-read WWII enthusiasts."—Publishers Weekly
"Dr. Hanson has
written another well-researched and fascinating book.... [He] does an excellent
job of placing World War II in the historical context of global conflict."—New York Journal of Books
"[Hanson's] unusual approach
yields new insights about long-familiar events, making his experiments
ingenious and successful."—America in WWII magazine
"In his latest work, noted military historian Victor
Davis Hanson provides an utterly original account of what he terms the "first
true global conflict.""—History Net
"Let me simply say this: prepare yourself to be astonished. The more you know about WWII, the greater will be your astonishment. The Second World Wars demonstrates once again that VDH is a constantly renewing American national treasure who continues to go from strength to strength."—Claremont Review of Books
"I couldn't put it down. It is rare to encounter a view of the war from the multiple perspectives of the six powers, three on each side, who were the prime combatants, in the elemental theaters of sea and air and land. The analysis is excellent. The Second World Wars is a major work of historical narrative and deserves to meet readers receptive to its riches."
—David Lehman, author of Sinatra's Century
—David Lehman, author of Sinatra's Century
"Victor Davis Hanson has delivered another masterpiece-this time a monumental history of World War II, surpassing all prior attempts at a comprehensive accounting of that cataclysm. Ranging from the deserts of North Africa to the islands of the Pacific, Hanson brings to bear a massive arsenal of insights to illuminate how strategy, culture, industry, and leadership shaped battlefield events and doomed the Axis empires."
—Mark Moyar, author of Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America's Special Operations Forces
—Mark Moyar, author of Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America's Special Operations Forces
"If you think there is nothing more to be said about World War II, then you haven't read Victor Davis Hanson's The Second World Wars. Hanson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of the conflict, ranging from land to sea to air, and from grand strategy to infantry tactics, to analyze what happened and why. Page after page, he produces dazzling insights informed by his deep knowledge of military history going all the way back to ancient Greece. The Second World Wars is compulsively readable."
—Max Boot, author of Invisible Armies, War Made New and The Savage Wars of Peace
—Max Boot, author of Invisible Armies, War Made New and The Savage Wars of Peace
"Victor Hanson's comprehensive account of World War II is a wonder. Where others have supplied a narrative, he provides analysis. He explores the war's origins; the role played in its conduct by airpower, sea power, infantry, tanks, artillery, industry, and generalship; and the reasons why the Allies won and the Axis lost. This is an eye-opener and a page-turner."
—Paul A. Rahe, Hillsdale College, author of The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge
—Paul A. Rahe, Hillsdale College, author of The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge
"The Second World Wars offers an incisive tale for our age of globalization. Yet it is rooted in timeless truths. That is no surprise because Victor Davis Hanson is our greatest historian of western warfare from its origins in ancient Greece. Nobody writes military history like Hanson."
—Barry Strauss, author of The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Greatest Assassination
—Barry Strauss, author of The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Greatest Assassination
"The Second World Wars is a monumental, riveting, and illuminating reappraisal of the first - and hopefully the last - truly global conflict, full of exceptional insights from one of America's greatest living historians. Victor Davis Hanson's account provides an exceptional retrospective on the wars in which a staggering 60 million people perished before the Allies prevailed."
—General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and coalition forces in Afghanistan and former Director of the CIA
—General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and coalition forces in Afghanistan and former Director of the CIA
"Hanson
is a writer who crunches not only numbers but the text itself. He has a gift
for brevity, exactness, and clarity. Invariably he brings the wisdom of a
lifetime of scholarship, plus his natural intelligence, to bear on judgments
about strategy, causes, leadership, and results. [The Second World
Wars] is a fine book, rich in both facts and ideas. It is a triumph for
an author/historian with a clear vision, the necessary imagination, and the
intellect to explain the past to us on a vast canvas, with clarity, a sense of
values, and common sense."—Omaha Dispatch
"I loved
this book. Strongly recommended."—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
