Customer Reviews
Interesting book - By: PhilosopherKing, 28 Nov 2008 
This was an interesting book & corrects some of the Anglo-American views of the Second World War which used to prevail.
I think that it has long been acknowledged that the USSR took the brunt of the war although I think that Norman Davies isin danger of making the American & British contributions seem negligible. Although Norman Davies comes out with some quasi-mathematical/scientific facts about the number of German divisions operatingin the USSR & the intensity of the conflict there & so on there are some points that would make me question his view of the conflict. I am not an expert but here are some points that I would raise:
1 Even though the Western armies werein contact with the German armies for less time &in fewer numbers than the Soviet army the Western navies & air forces played important rolesin the war. German resources were diverted into a combination of U-boat operations, air defence as well as various military engagements with the Western allies even prior to the D-Day landings. Common sense suggests that these resources may have helped to tip the balance if they were all used against the USSR i.e. the manpower & resources were reallocated to different uses.
2 The Germans had large numbers of troops tied upin places such as Norway & elsewhere & this wouldn't have been necessary had the Western allies not been involvedin the war. Again, these resources could have been used against the USSR.
3 The Western allies didin fact capture & kill large numbers of German troops e.g.in North Africa &in France. Large numbers of tanks & planes were destroyed by the Western allies. Moreover, it simply isn't true that the Western allies only came up against second rate troops leaving the best to fightin Russia. In Crete, Italy & elsewhere they came up against elite parachute troops &in Normandy they destroyed a number of crack SS divisions.
4 It was largely the United States & to a certain extent the British Empire that defeated Japan. There were large numbers of Japanese troopsin China but internecine warfare between various Chinese factions meant that China didn't make an enormous contribution towards the defeat of Japan. Although the USSR declared war on Japan at the very end of the war & launched an attack against the Japanesein Manchuria the role of the USSRin the defeat of Japan was negligible. Without the Western allies being at war with Japan it is possible that Japan may have attacked the USSR from the East while Germany was still doing wellin the West of the USSR.
5 The United States & Britain supplied the USSR with huge amounts of equipment, locomotives, trucks, clothing including boots & food & fuel.
Whilst no one denies that the USSR suffered enormously during WWII & broke the back of the German army, without Western involvement many things may have panned out differently & USSR may well have had to face far greater forces attacking from both East & West.
Towards an objective perspective of WWII - By: John Ferngrove, 12 Sep 2008 
Norman Davies had already made himself my favourite historian with his mighty Europe: A History & 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 Seain late medieval times. Nuf said.
This history of WWII isin my opinion, his most important book to date, because it aims to place the first real dentin the deeply flawed mythologies that virtually all particpant & 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 & 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, & that the contribution made by the allied democracies, whilst being respectable were not the decisive, good & 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, & 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 & maintained on the threat of slaughter through superior technology & wealth. Apologists for the British Empire like to tell us of its splendid achievements for the populations concerened & 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 & all populations rejoiced at the departure of their masters, whereupon the business of normal history resumed. Early 20th Century US adventurismin central America, & 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 & 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 & 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 & harrowing reading to come for many of us yet.
Anyone unconvinced that the scale of the Nazi-Soviet conflict, made all elsein Europe a side show should just try Googling WWII Eastern Front. Stalin put it best - 'Britain provided the time, America the money & Russia the Blood'.
An excellent revisiting of the facts of WW2 - By: J. Duducu, 02 Apr 2008 This is written with both humour & intelligence & is a startling re-examination of what you thought you knew about WW2. Davies's first point that every country involved has created it's own very national interpretation of what happened you immediately realise must be true & therefore your own understanding must therefore be flawed. This intellectual conundrum keeps you reading through an excellent book that is full of surprises & fascinating facts.
My grumbles are threefold. While this book discusses how you should see this war as a whole & therefore start discussing the importance of Polish resistance or the fact that Belorussia suffered worse than any other countryin the war, it does ignore the other bit of the war...the Pacific. True the book is called "Europe" at war but if Davies's argument is you must look at the bigger picture & then he himself does not I find that a little inconsistent. Also the final third is very bitty with literally only a couple of pages on the life of certain groupsin the war, it may have been better to group them together to add a little more coherence. Finally while he dissects the distortion of the warin the media he misses out a major area which is computer games, because love them or loath them most teens know more about WW2 by playing something like Medal of Honor than either watching now relatively old films like a Bridge too Far or actually reading a book.
Saying all that it is these minor points that take the book down from 5 to 4 stars. This is still an essential read even if you think you know everything about the war. A fascinating book.
The history, boys! - By: Stockeditor, 14 Jan 2008 I found this to be quite gripping. It's not a straightforward chronological treatment; it is topic based & none the worse for that. Each section is well researched yet very readable. Quite eye opening on occasion, too. Don't be put off by the inclusion of so many tables; every one is accessible & thoroughly illuminating. Allin all, Davies writes a rattling good yarn. He may have a few axes to grind (especially regarding Poland) but, for the most part, this is revealing, lucid & convincing stuff, delivered with all the panache (and wit) of a classy page turner.
How to demolish a lot of myths .. - By: A. J. Sudworth, 15 Dec 2007 I put this book down with a sigh because it completely explodes the myth of a good & bad side to WW2
I'd always been told that this was a war against the evil Nazis - butin fact a) we didn't do the majority of the fighting against the Nazis
b) the methods of our premier allyin the war was every bit as bad as what we fighting against (I clear case of 'they may be ********, but they are our ...'
Stalin may well have been right,in that England bought the time, the US the money & the USSR the blood' to the fight but the whole book just leaves you with a very nasty tastein your mouth, not just about the war but the methods used by the protagonistsin pursuit of their aims
The image of two sidesin the European war is demolished - there were qute clearly three on this evidence & the Allies had very different aims.
Its also quite clear that the battles that destroyed the German ability to attack were not fought by the US & UK - the USSR are shown to have destroyed that capability at Kursk & we should acknowledge that effort for the turning point that it was
The worst part of this book is not the campaigns but all the associated activity around the occupation of countries , police , summary justice, race murder & so on.
The Germans needed to be stopped - I still think that is a fact
But it was the USSR that did most the workin Europe & what the UK & US were unable to stop was the partition of Europe after the war that took another 50 years to change.
In fact the most chilling part of the book is the suggestion that the second world war was just the second military phase of a power strugglein Europe that lasted from 1914 to 1990
An excellent read with some uncomfortable conclusions
