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Title: A World at Arms : A Global History of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg ISBN: 0-521-55879-4 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 July, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The foremost scholarly single-volume history of WWII
Comment: Gerhard L. Weinberg has brought forth a thoughtful history of World War II, distinguished by its comprehensive scope and coherent organization. The broad sweep of the war is organized around the foreign policies of the combatants, which clarifies the causes of the war and its development within the strategic rationale of the contestants. This approach also reveals the tensions within each of the alliances. For the Allies, the reader sees the particular controversies that were subsumed to the greater goal of defeating the Axis, but which in some ways presaged the antagonisms of the Cold War. For the Axis, it was not so much the tensions, but rather the mutual disregard for each other's aims that was determinative, exemplified by Japan's blunder of attacking Pearl Harbor and Germany's unwillingness to reach an accord with the USSR as German military power waned. A history such as this is especially useful for reacquainting us with the challenges of multilateralism as the anomalous international system of the Cold War recedes. In this regard, I also favor Dean Acheson's memoirs, "Present at the Creation."
Hitler's essential focus on gaining the agricultural and industrial resources of the Ukraine provides rationality to German actions, and explains why the USSR faced such a tremendous burden, with staggering human cost, holding the Eastern Front. Japan's own ambitions are similar in that it hoped to secure natural resources through dominance of the western Pacific. Distinctly irrational for both countries, however, was the systematic savagery that was integral to their operations. In Germany's case, these activities were an extension of its racial purity policies of the 1930s, culminating in the Holocaust, as well as its intent to cleanse ethnically the Soviet territory it occupied in preparation for relocating Germans into these areas.
Weinberg starkly describes the utter darkness that fell across the world at the start of the war: Germany's ejection of British forces from Europe and Greece; the capitulation of France; the encirclement of Soviet forces by the hundreds of thousands; Japan's sweep throughout the western Pacific; and the near-total isolationism of the United States. As the war proceeded, strategic misjudgments by the Axis provided an opportunity for the Allies to rally. Britain passed the trial of the Battle of Britain, the United States was drawn in to the war by Pearl Harbor, and the USSR, if not without tragic waste, developed the highly effective force that was to be the bulwark and eventually the bludgeon against the Wehrmacht. At the same time, the Axis passed its high watermarks of the war with strategic defeats at Midway and Stalingrad. Weinberg's history appreciates these events not only with respect to their diplomatic and military ramifications, but also the technological, economic, and demographic forces at work. While key engagements are dealt with in their strategic and operational context, a history like this will probably not be of tremendous interest to students of particular battles, or of anecdotal combat experiences. Also, despite the current focus on combating terrorism, Weinberg's description of the reordering of global relations in the aftermath of the war remains relevant today.
This book draws on historical source material that became available in the early 1990s. Graduate students in history take note: Weinberg offers numerous ideas for thesis research. Another contemporary history, "A War to be Won" by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, would probably also be worth reading in conjunction with Weinberg.
As much as I favor this book, I have to admit that it was a cumbersome read. Not that it was poorly written, but the scope of the subject demands much from the reader. Still, determination yields an edifying read, and this authoritative history, with its absence of axe-grinding and hobby-horsing, is worthy of one's serious attention. Afterwards, one major impression I was left with is that although the international system failed to thwart the ambitions of fascist nations, contributing to the causation of the war, during the war a combination of diverse forces permitted the Allies to rally from profound defeat and eventually renew the international system in victory.
The maps, which are hidden between the bibliographic notes and index, are minimally useful, and I highly recommend "The Times Atlas of the Second World War" (out of print, unfortunately and inexplicably) in order to appreciate Weinberg's descriptions of the campaigns as they unfold.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Overall Book On WWII Yet Written
Comment: This is truly the most comprehensive monograph written as an overview of the war as an ongoing event in world history. Time and again Weinberg amazes us with his grasp and understanding of the connections and influences within and among the many theaters of war. This, then, is a massively documented and carefully researched one volume comprehensive history of World War Two as a world war quite unlike the one that preceded it. He traces its origins in the events and consequences flowing from the first world war, and then demonstrates quite handily that the political fate and will of one man, Adolph Hitler, literally forced the war into being. He analyzes the events professionally and dispassionately, and ties together the events in all their horror to the nature of the world conflict. While one can certainly argue that most of what he says is not new, it is also the case that he links the observations of others with his own insights in a way that is much more learned, better organized, and comprehensive in its results. Some of the statistics tying the various theaters of conflict together are dizzying, such as the fact that the numbers of divisions (over two hundred) deployed by Hitler on the eastern front, for example, both dwarf and doom the troops (just fifty divisions)available for the defense of the western wall of Europe. He estimates the total number of deaths due directly to the war at over sixty million, and cites the various sources for such a catastrophic figure. Likewise, you see how the Japanese situation of being overextended in Asia fighting defensive struggles against the Chinese, British, Australians, etc from India to Burma has consequences for its sumultaneous defense against assembled naval activities and the island-by-island hopping and isolation strategy of the Allied forces. This book is immensely readable, but is so literally packed with details and connections, so is often difficult to read both because of its subject matter and the details he includes. His overview, for example, of Hitler's criuel and inhumane eugenics activities against his own people, especially the mentally ill, defective, and the infirm even before the war is both nauseating and revealing. Likewise, his argument that the "Final Solution" of total extermination of all European Jews was more the result of desperation, logistics, and the rush of historical circumstance than a long-standing and well-thought out policy decision is quite interesting to read. It was only after the massive displacements of Polish Jews into a single sector that feeding and maintaining this large population clearly became the chief argument for the mass extermination of all Jews. On the other hand, the war against the Russians was always intended to be a war of extermination, one in which the armies and occupants of the areas conquered were to be savagely and brutally used for slave labor and then eliminated. This is truly a masterwork in the sense of being the single best attempt to date to write the complete overview of the Second World War as an event in world history. Buy it, read it slowly, and enjoy!
Rating: 5
Summary: Want a tour-de-force read on WWII? This is it!!!
Comment: "A World At Arms" is quite frankly one of the best books on WWII I have ever read (I've read few). This is one packed book. Weinberg covers the events leading up to the war, as well as the events themselves. Although 1300ish pages in length it reads like a 250 page books that fills your soul with facts! You'll get the how's, who's, where's, and why's - even if you already know the when's and what's they're there also. Truly a "world" perspective, Weinberg includes it all. It really is hard to now imagine how much this book covered and how easily it does it. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Yet, block some time, even though it's an easy read it is more than half the length of "War and Peace" so it takes time - but time well spent.
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Title: A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War by Williamson Murray, Allan R. Millett ISBN: 0674006801 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Second World War by John Keegan ISBN: 014011341X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy ISBN: 039331619X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Oxford Companion to World War II by Ian Dear, M. R. D. Foot ISBN: 0198604467 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The First World War by John Keegan ISBN: 0375700455 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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