The Two World Wars

by Susanne Everett, Peter Young

This book combines the history of the two cataclysmic conflicts of the twentieth century. World War 1 was a terrible and wasteful conflict which involved not only armies and navies but whole nations. The industrial revolution of the previous century had armed both side with weapons of a destructive power undreamt of a mere 50 years earlier. Machine guns, tanks, high explosive shells, gas, aircraft and submarines all extracted a terrible toll in human life while many of the military leaders persisted in tactics which were totally obsolete. After four years of bloody trench warfare the exhausted combatants finally signed an armistice which was to be followed by a vindictive peace treaty imposed on Germany by the Allies powers. This was in part responsible for the conditions which enabled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and ultimately to the outbreak of the next great conflict.
World War 2 was the most devastating war in history with more than thirty million dead. Cities were destroyed and whole populations were forcibly removed from their traditional homelands. The evil of Nazism and horror of its deed will never be forgotten. Brigadier Peter young, one of the great heroes of World War 2 and one of its most distinguished historians, covers the war on land, sea and in the air. Clearly and concisely, his text describes the fighting from Europe to the South Pacific, from the deserts of South Africa to the jungles of Burma, and from the skies above Germany to the Battle of the Atlantic. The story ends with the momentous introduction of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The two great conflicts are illustrated by more than 800 photographs, many of them in colour. The books also contains many maps, technical illustrations and tabular charts which will bring home to the reader the scale and intensity of twentieth century warfare.

Genres: History

Hardcover

Published February 1, 1984

Reviews

[Alex Lukic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well informed, but with a metastasis of British bias on the Second World War part. The book ought to have been titled “How the United Kingdom won WWII with the scant support of the USSR and the USA.” Brigadier Peter Young narrates the history of the Second World War with an uncanny ability to defame Russian and American operations and over-compliment British ones. A little bit like saying, “the Brits were the brains, the Russians the numbers, the Americans the muscle.” Take for example the fateful Operation Overlord chapter over which he hardly shows the required objectivity to assess the successful breach of Omaha Beach that turned into a carnage because the bulk of the German resistance was limited to that beachfront. The invasions at Juno and Sword (predominantly British-led and teeming with accolades for its splendid evolution by the author) were underwhelming in comparison because they simply lacked resistance. Had American troops failed to secure Omaha Beach the invasion would have been a failure. We all know that, and so should have Brigadier Peter Young. A similar dose of lack of appreciation goes to the Red Army at Stalingrad on which chapter Young lacks a fair narrative to describe the remarkable effort by the Russians. However, Young spends countless pages giving the Brits all the credit for winning the war in the North Atlantic singlehandedly! “The British did this” should have read “The Allies did this”. An emotionally erratic book bereft of historical objectivity.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book describes, in great detail, the events and battles of World War I and II. From the trenches of the Western Front to the embattled marines at Guadalcanal, this book tells the story of the brave fighters who did battle, and the countries that guided them.