World War Two: History in an Hour

History In An Hour

by Rupert Colley

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.
Lasting six years and a day, the Second World War saw the lives of millions – soldiers and civilians, young and old – changed forever. During the conflict, a thousand people died for each and every hour it lasted. With eighty-one of the world’s nations involved and affected in some way, this was war on a truly global scale.

Offering a wide overview of the major figures, politics and action on all sides, World War Two: History in an Hour provides a concise picture of the world upturned. How the conflicts began, the violence involved and how they affected a century: this is the story of the events that ended over sixty million lives and challenged our understanding of humanity.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Audiobook, Historical, World War II, Ebooks

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 13, 2009

About the author

Founder, writer and Series Editor of History In An Hour (http://historyinanhour.com), owned by HarperCollins UK, and now author of two novels.

The first, "My Brother the Enemy", a novella, is set during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

The second, "This Time Tomorrow", set during and following World War One, is a compelling story of war, brotherly love, passion and betrayal.

My third novel, "The Black Maria", is set in Moscow in 1935, the height of Stalin's reign, about love crushed by the machine.

Reviews

[Dr. Appu Sasidharan (Dasfill) · Rating 3 out of 5]

World War 2 is one of the darkest periods (1939- 1945) in world history. The Allies and the Axis powers fought severely to win this war. Many significant events like the collapse of Germany, the use of Nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the death of more than 2 lakh innocent human beings, the dissolution of the League of Nations, the formation of the United Nations, and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as the superpowers happened due to this war. All these events are mentioned well in this book. It is through Anne Frank and Viktor E Frankl that the World came to know about the full extent of trauma that this war caused. Let us hope and pray that a third world war will never happen.

[Zoe Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me wayyyyy back to my GCSE history lessons. A quick, comprehensive, digestible look at WW2 at a glance. A good read for anyone with even the faintest interest in key events, people and countries during WW2.

[Omar Kassem · Rating 3 out of 5]

الحرب العالمية الثانية..واحدة من أحلك الفترات في تاريخ البشرية بتلخيص جميل في هذا الكتاب لكنه غير كافٍ وبسيط بالنسبة لمن قرأ العديد من الكتب عن هذه الفترة ، لكنها تجربة سماعية جيدة..
دول الحلفاء ضد دول المحور ، استعمال القنابل النووية لاول مرة في التاريخ ، انهيار ألمانيا النازية ، حل عصبة الأمم ، تشكل الامم المتحدة ، بداية ظهور الاتحاد السوفييتي كقوة عظمة و واحدة من نتائج هذه الحرب..
في انتظار تطورات الاحداث الاخيرة التي يقول العديد بأنها تمهيد لحرب عالمية ثالثة..

29/2022

[Sohail · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book,  but could have been excellent if it was not so biased. Many atrocities and crimes of the allied forces have been censored, and the nuclear bombs? Only two short sentences, no mention of the immediate consequences, and that's it!
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this book. Highly recommended if you keep in mind that this is not an entirely honest text.

[Amresh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a surmountable task to put entire Second World War in just one-hour narration and the author has tried his best. I have read few books in this series. Like all other books, this book has two major portions. The first part consists of World War –II events and the second one has included a short introduction about the key players. I always felt it convenient to read the second part first. My rating is 3.5.

[Osama · Rating 4 out of 5]

مقدمة قصيرة ومفيدة عن أهم أحداث الحرب العالمية الثانية.

[Ignas Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative, well delivered, interesting

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's amazing how much I didn't know about WWII, particularly the lesser told conflicts, such as in Finland, Burma, Philippines, Burma, China, etc. This really was a true World War, involving far more countries than WWI. One startling fact, unknown to me, was that only 5% of deaths in WWI were civilian. This figure rose to 66% in WWII, which shows how deep it reached the truly innocents. It's obviously a quick read but it does pique the interest to learn more of this horrendous period in history.

[Jim affleck · Rating 5 out of 5]

World War Two in concise detail

This was another truly interesting book in this series. Have always enjoyed and been fascinated by historical facts. This book, as always, brings Rupert's take on events to the table. It is almost like sitting, in a cafe, chewing the breeze, and listening to, and simply taking the time to learn something new, and slightly different. Again HIGHLY recommend. Really simple reading. Jim

[Danny Farham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audible edition and I was amazed at the amount of information crammed into the
1 hr 26 mins. The narrator was perfect for this type of book, he sounded like an old school BBC news presenter. I downloaded this book for my son to help him with his history project but I enjoyed it also. I would recommend it to anyone really.

[DrC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice digestible pieces of ww2 history

A great read. Ww2 condensed into tasty chunks. This has helped me learn about the key events and answer questions my boys have about the second world war.

[Irina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Хорошо все, что про Европу, часть, касающаяся России объективностью не отличается. Ну а повторение глупых слухов про прячущегося на даче Сталина (ну и без изнасилованных немок не обошлось...) сразу придает оттенок "желтизны" и несколько меняет отношение ко всему высказыванию.

[Lukasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Temat Drugiej Wojny Światowej nie jest mi obcy, sporo książek oraz filmów na ten temat widziałem i czytałem. W tej pozycji w krótki i zwięzły sposób można sobie odświezyć lub po prostu przybliżyć ogólną wiedzę na ten temat.

[Irfan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not enough detail about human cost of war.

[Mazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read , an easily digestible account of WW2

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are good quick listens about history. I have been watching”The Man in the High Castle” listening to this offered a small glimpse of history.

[Peter Kalnin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, clear and with good narration.

[Philip Battle · Rating 3 out of 5]

.....great

[Vamil Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book but would have enjoyed more if it was not so biased.
Listened to the audio version of the book.

[Piyush Sakorikar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book
Compact understanding of all the major battles

[ЧІТАЮГУМІЛЬОВА ЧІТАЮГУМІЛЬОВА · Rating 3 out of 5]

Хуйня вроде

[Alžběta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good summary of WWII that skilfully puts the conflict into global context.

[Sara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and concise. Great for refreshing your memory.

[L NiEa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise and well written. Great synopsis of WW2. Easy and interesting to read. Handy to get a quick overview.

[Willow Rankin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction into the events of the second world war. A really great standout to the Hourly History range of books.

[Kate Solo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good quick recap of all WWII events. Like how author mixed people personal life and big battles.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Broad brush summary of WWII including both the European and Asian theaters, and brief bios of several key players from all sides..

[Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

That is an incredible book if you are only starting to diving in into the topic of World War Two. I only knew about general and a little bit detailed stuff about The Second World War, but my knowledge was not systematized and it wasn't deep enough. That book was a game-changer! I listened to a great two-hour audiobook with Russian translation and was surprised, how this book is packed with information per page to a teeth. Now, I know more about this War, I have a general understanding of the chronological order of events, I learned, which countries took part in the war in the South-East Asian region, and memorized some World Leaders quotes. I can't recommend this enough for someone, who is only starting this historical World War Two journey!

[Victoria(:]

This book invariably sticks to interesting facts and for all its succinctness, manages to relate the story in an engaging way with clear language in paragraphs & sentences and devoid of rare and defunct lexicon. It is a story told almost consecutively to events unfolding between 1939 and 1945 and is nicely divided into sectioned chapters which are also anchor-linked directly to those portions of the book. This allows us to easily re-read a chapter and maybe use it as a springboard into deeper knowledge of an area we find particularly interesting.
It truly is a brilliant introduction into World War Two and became more & more engrossing as I read through. It does a good job at linking everything together and offering a precursor into the character of key WW2 figures. I recommend reading this using the the search facility and visuals of Google-maps; it'll provide a richer experience with geographical understanding of the story which I feel is crucial to the imagination.

[John Dodds · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good idea: a very short high level summary of the main events of the Second World War. While I'm not an expert, I'm familiar with the key events yet still found this interesting and useful.

It's not, however, as well delivered as it could be. Some of the writing is slack and the organisation could be tighter. It reads more like a hobby project than a professional publication. But it's a fair effort and decent value from the Amazon Kindle Store for GBP 0.99.