World War II in Photographs

by Robin Cross

World War II was the single most destructive conflict in world history, fought from the icy seas of the North Atlantic to the deserts of North Africa and the jungles of the Far East. It saw German bombers fly up the Thames to set London's Docklands ablaze and US Marines ensure the grimmest of battles to seize tiny specks in the Pacific Ocean from their fanatical Japanese defenders.

This spectacular pictorial record of the years of 1939 to 1945, and its accompanying text, cover all the principal theatres of war and many of its most significant themes: the roles of strategic bombing and propaganda, the part played by women in the war effort, the characters of the warlords Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, and the unfolding tragedy of the Holocaust.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Sam Woodfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very strange book. It claims to tell the story of the war through photographs, and I was looking forward to some really stunning, moving pictures showing the events of the war. However, the photos are not particularly brilliant or interesting, and are certainly nothing I haven't seen before. The focus on this book is primarily the narrative which takes up most of the page space. However the words are lacking description and detail, and there is a real lack of chronology and connection of events. The pictures also didn't seem to correspond with the words which I found irritating.
This book would have been far better if it ran in a more chronological manner and used some inspiring pictures to tell the story, using fewer words by way of simply explaining the images. Books on the World War really need some level of detail to make them have the impact required and that just wasn't the case here.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 2 out of 5]

World War II in photographs, first published in 1998, attempts to give a pictorial summary of the worlds greatest conflict in only 96 pages, through the use of just over 150 illustrations. This it cannot really do, added to which the photos selected are some of the most common hackneyed pics used over the years. As such, I'm not sure what it really adds to the subject apart from filling shelf space in the local bargain bookstore. On the positive side, nicely printed with sensible captions to the photos.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reason it took me almost a year to finally go and finish this book was that it just didn't catch me. Guess I was expecting a bit more of the human side of WW2 and the book leaned to the statistical and strategical side. It's got a lot of information about what type of weapons and vehicles were used, points for combat deployment and casualty numbers. It was just way too descriptive for me.