The Second World Wars, Victor Davis Hanson
The Second World Wars, Victor Davis Hanson
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The Second World Wars
How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won

Author: Victor Davis Hanson

Narrator: Bob Souer

Unabridged: 23 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/25/2018


Synopsis

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.

About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow in military history at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He is the author of more than two dozen books, ranging in topics from ancient Greece to modern America, including The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. He lives in Selma, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ben on March 02, 2018

Two factors made this book an instant “Must Have” and “Must Read” work. The first factor was that Victor Davis Hanson wrote it. Hanson is both a classicist and a military historian. He is equally at home teaching, speaking, or writing about the ancient Greeks and Romans. His skills include being ade......more

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on July 20, 2019

Magnificent overview of the global policies, tactics and economics that shaped the conduct of the war, for both the Axis and Allies. Unique in the sense that it does not craft a chronological narrative, but rather describes the various 'fronts' that inevitable led to different policies in which - at......more

Goodreads review by David on November 21, 2017

Disappointing, especially compared to Hanson's work on the classical world. (This book has too many classical references, betraying a certain amount of authorial anxiety) It's not really a history but rather a congratulatory, triumphal retrospective on the Allies' victory that we know occurred. It's......more

Goodreads review by Carol Bakker on February 07, 2019

I held this heavy book in my hands and in my spirit the last three months. The numbers are numbing. 65,000,000 died because of this mammoth calamity. The Russian dead at Leningrad alone were four times greater than the death toll of all Americans during the entire war. While I've read dozens of narra......more

Goodreads review by James on January 24, 2021

Victor Davis Hanson has written many books of military history. The Second World Wars may be his most ambitious. He writes a deep, thorough analysis of WWII without describing the military operations themselves. It's not a narrative but is, instead, an honest, open-eyed appraisal of how military ope......more