A War of Empires
Japan, India, Burma & Britain: 1941-45
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Narrated by:
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Roger May
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By:
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Robert Lyman
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents A War of Empires by Robert Lyman, read by Roger May.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RUSI DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY 2022
'This is a superb book.' – James Holland
In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. But change was coming. New commanders were appointed, significant training together with restructuring took place, and new tactics were developed. A War of Empires by acclaimed historian Robert Lyman expertly records these coordinated efforts and describes how a new volunteer Indian Army, rising from the ashes of defeat, would ferociously fight to turn the tide of war.
But victory did not come immediately. It wasn’t until March 1944, when the Japanese staged their famed ‘March on Delhi’, that the years of rebuilding paid off and, after bitter fighting, the Japanese were finally defeated at Kohima and Imphal. This was followed by a series of extraordinary victories culminating in Mandalay in May 1945 and the collapse of all Japanese forces in Burma. Until now, the Indian Army’s contribution has been consistently forgotten and ignored by many Western historians but Robert Lyman proves how vital this hard-fought campaign was in securing Allied victory in the east.
Detailing the defeat of Japanese militarism, he recounts how the map of the region was ultimately redrawn, guaranteeing the rise of an independent India free from the shackles of empire.
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Critic reviews
"Every so often new work emerges that dramatically changes how we view key aspects of the war, and A War of Empires does just that. Written with meticulous scholarship and from a deep and profound knowledge of the subject matter, it is full of wisdom, sound judgement and with a convincing and refreshing central thesis. Robert Lyman has unquestionably become the foremost scholar of the War in the Far East." (James Holland, best-selling author and broadcaster)
"A fine, comprehensive and much-needed reappraisal of the pivotal Burma campaign in World War II. Exhaustively researched and engagingly written, it tells this dramatic story from the perspective of all the major combatants." (Professor Saul David, historian, novelist and broadcaster)
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Nomonhan: Why Japan Demurred
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 08-03-14
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When Titans Clashed
- How the Red Army Stopped Hitler
- By: David M. Glantz, Jonathan M. House
- Narrated by: James Romick
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Revised and updated to reflect recent Russian and Western scholarship on the subject, this new edition maintains the 1995 original's distinction as a crucial volume in the history of World War II and of the Soviet Union and the most informed and compelling perspective on one of the greatest military confrontations of all time.
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The largest conflict in human history
- By Eddie on 05-15-22
By: David M. Glantz, and others
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Hitler's Soldiers
- The German Army in the Third Reich
- By: Ben H. Shepherd
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades after 1945, it was generally believed that the German army, professional and morally decent, had largely stood apart from the SS, Gestapo, and other corps of the Nazi machine. Ben Shepherd draws on a wealth of primary sources and recent scholarship to convey a much darker, more complex picture. For the first time, the German army is examined throughout the Second World War, across all combat theaters and occupied regions, and from multiple perspectives: its battle performance, social composition, relationship with the Nazi state, and involvement in war crimes and occupation.
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Thorough and scholarly
- By Mary A. on 03-23-18
By: Ben H. Shepherd
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Haig's Enemy
- Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany's War on the Western Front
- By: Jonathan Boff
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war - the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare.
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Insightful look inside dysfunctional WW1 Germany
- By J.Brock on 11-04-19
By: Jonathan Boff
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Case Red
- The Collapse of France
- By: Robert Forczyk
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Even after the legendary evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940 there were still large British formations fighting the Germans alongside their French allies. After mounting a vigorous counterattack at Abbeville and then engaging a tough defense along the Somme, the British were forced to conduct a second evacuation from the ports of Le Havre, Cherbourg, Brest, and St. Nazaire. Case Red captures the drama of the final three weeks of military operations in France in June 1940.
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Not Forczyk's best offering
- By S.C. James on 01-30-18
By: Robert Forczyk
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Sun Tzu at Gettysburg
- Ancient Military Wisdom in the Modern World
- By: Bevin Alexander
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine the impact on world history if Robert E. Lee had listened to General Longstreet at Gettysburg and withdrawn to higher ground instead of sending Pickett uphill against the entrenched Union line. Or if Napolon, at Waterloo, had avoided mistakes he'd never made before. The advice that would have changed the outcome of these crucial battles is found in a book on strategy written centuries before Christ was born.
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How Different History Could Be
- By Lifeisshort on 09-13-14
By: Bevin Alexander
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The Drive on Moscow, 1941
- Operation Taifun and Germany’s First Great Crisis of World War II
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Anders Frankson
- Narrated by: Dave Courvoisier
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of September 1941, more than a million German soldiers lined up along the frontline just 180 miles west of Moscow. They were well trained, confident, and had good reasons to hope that the war in the East would be over with one last offensive. Facing them was an equally large Soviet force, but whose soldiers were neither as well trained nor as confident. When the Germans struck, disaster soon befell the Soviet defenders.
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Add the maps, lose the accents
- By Carrick on 07-03-14
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
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Third Reich Victorious
- Alternate Histories of World War II
- By: Peter G. Tsouras
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is a stimulating and entirely plausible insight into how Hitler and his generals might have defeated the Allies, and a convincing sideways look at the Third Reich's bid at world domination in World War II. What would have happened if, for example, the Germans captured the whole of the BEF at Dunkirk? Or if the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain?
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A fresh look at WW2 - false but makes one wonder.
- By Eggert Eggertsson on 09-05-15
By: Peter G. Tsouras
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Armor and Blood
- The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II
- By: Dennis E. Showalter
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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While the Battle of Kursk has long captivated World War II aficionados, it has been unjustly overlooked by historians. Drawing on the masses of new information made available by the opening of the Russian military archives, Dennis E. Showalter at last corrects that error. This battle was the critical turning point on World War II's Eastern Front. In the aftermath of the Red Army's brutal repulse of the Germans at Stalingrad, the stakes could not have been higher.
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Big Ups to Prof. Showalter and Audible
- By Placeholder on 08-28-13
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The Battle of the Tanks
- Kursk, 1943
- By: Lloyd Clark
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On July 5, 1943, the greatest land battle in history began when Nazi and Red Army forces clashed near the town of Kursk, on the western border of the Soviet Union. Code named Operation Citadel, the German offensive would cut through the bulge in the eastern front that had been created following Germany's retreat at the battle of Stalingrad. But the Soviets, well informed about Germany's plans through their network of spies, had months to prepare.
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Good enough
- By Val Shebeko on 05-28-15
By: Lloyd Clark
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Hitler's Final Push
- The Battle of the Bulge from the German Point of View
- By: Danny S. Parker - editor
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Notes on one of the most infamous and bloody battles of World War II - from the German perspective. As the Allied armies swept toward the Reich in late 1944, the German high command embarked on an ambitious plan to gain the initiative on the western front and deal a crippling blow to the Allied war effort. As early as August 1944, when the Germans were being crushed in the east and hammered in Normandy, Hitler was talking of an offensive aimed at destroying as many American and British divisions as possible in a massive surprise assault.
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Not what was expected
- By S.C. James on 05-30-16
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A Savage War
- A Military History of the Civil War
- By: Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, Williamson Murray
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 24 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Civil War represented a momentous change in the character of war. It combined the projection of military might across a continent on a scale never before seen with an unprecedented mass mobilization of peoples. Yet despite the revolutionizing aspects of the Civil War, its leaders faced the same uncertainties that have vexed combatants since the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War.
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A Book about Conclusions
- By Terry Masters on 10-18-17
By: Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, and others
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What listeners say about A War of Empires
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeff G
- 05-30-22
Fills In a Great Gap
This book was a marvelous explanation of the war in Burma and India that has not received much understanding in America. This therefore filled in a great gap in my knowledge of WW2. The narrator was superb and perfect for the book. The author certainly did his homework as this book was thorough and kept my interest in it to the end. Highly recommend to any other WW2 history buffs.
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- Greg
- 05-31-22
Void of Interesting Detail
I have a few hundred audible books and this book is among those I got the least from. I expected to at least learn about the geography of this remote theater of the war but I got no sense of the places or of the people involved. This book is mostly about management of Brit and Indian resources and the potential for unrest in India and only peripherally about facing the Japanese.
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