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World War II
- A Very Short Introduction
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 3 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
The enormous loss of life and physical destruction caused by the First World War led people to hope that there would never be another such catastrophe. How then did it come to be that there was a Second World War that caused twice as much loss of life and more destruction than any other previous conflict?
In this Very Short Introduction, Gerhard L. Weinberg provides an introduction to the origins, course, and impact of the war on those who fought and the ordinary citizens who lived through it. Starting by looking at the inter-war years and the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he examines how the war progressed by examining a number of key events, including the war in the West in 1940, Barbarossa, the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, the expansion of Japan's war with China, developments on the home front, and the Allied victory from 1944-45. Exploring the costs and effects of the war, Weinberg concludes by considering the long-lasting mark World War II has left on society today.
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History for busy people. Listen to a concise history of the Vietnam War in just one hour. War, what is it good for? The Vietnam War: History In an Hour gives a gripping account of the most important Cold War-era conflict, fought between the United States and the Viet Cong, the Vietnam People’s Army and their Communist allies. It was one of the most traumatic military conflicts America has ever been involved in – and provoked a backlash of anti-war protests at home.
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Garbage
- By Michael on 08-06-12
By: Neil Smith
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World War Two
- A Short History
- By: Norman Stone
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous. In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One.
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Great primer before taking on the big tomes.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-18
By: Norman Stone
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America at War
- Concise Histories of U.S. Military Conflicts from Lexington to Afghanistan
- By: Terence T. Finn
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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War-organized violence against an enemy of the state-seems part and parcel of the American journey. Indeed, the United States was established by means of violence as ordinary citizens from New Hampshire to Georgia answered George Washington's call to arms. Since then, war has become a staple of American history. Counting the War for Independence, the United States has fought the armed forces of other nations at least twelve times, averaging a major conflict every twenty years.
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Remember the past
- By Mary on 12-13-23
By: Terence T. Finn
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The First World War
- By: Hew Strachan
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
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A century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world.
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Outstanding narrative of the military action
- By Tad Davis on 04-30-17
By: Hew Strachan
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The Iraq War
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
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John Keegan, whom the New York Review of Books calls "the best historian of our day", now brings his extraordinary expertise to bear on perhaps the most controversial war of our time. In exclusive interviews with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, John Keegan has gathered information about the war that adds immeasurably to our grasp of its causes, complications, costs, and consequences.
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A Solid, Quick Overview
- By Charles on 12-08-04
By: John Keegan
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Britain's War
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- By: Daniel Todman
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The most terrible emergency in Britain's history, the Second World War, required an unprecedented national effort. An exhausted country had to fight an unexpectedly long war and found itself much diminished amongst the victors. The outcome of the war was nonetheless a triumph, not least for a political system that proved well adapted to the demands of a total conflict and for a population who had to make many sacrifices but who were spared most of the horrors experienced in the rest of Europe.
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Great Performance, Biased with out a warning!
- By dell992 on 06-21-16
By: Daniel Todman
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The Cold War's Killing Fields
- Rethinking the Long Peace
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
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In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part of a vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more than 14 million dead - victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history.
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Interesting but Biased
- By Jonathan W Schneider on 08-13-18
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No Simple Victory
- World War II in Europe, 1939-1945
- By: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.
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The Best Account of WWII in Europe
- By Nikoli Gogol on 12-27-07
By: Norman Davies
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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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Forgotten Ally
- China's World War II, 1937 - 1945
- By: Rana Mitter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China two full years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
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Bland
- By Rodney on 01-23-14
By: Rana Mitter
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What listeners say about World War II
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darwin8u
- 03-12-19
Overdressed... and over here
"They’re overfed, overpaid, overdressed... and over here."
- Anonymous, quoted in World War II: VSI
This is a solid, if bland, 30,000 ft summary of a large, massive, well-examined subject.
I didn't expect much beyond this. It would be difficult to do a 150 page VSI for the Battle of Stalingrad, the African Campaign, or the Battle of Okinawa. So, covering both the European and Pacific theatres, etc., creates a VSI that can't even begin to get beyond the superficial on anything. It is a book, however, that would be useful as a one-day survey of the war at the high school, or Freshman college level, BEFORE diving deeper into a granular exploration of specific aspect of the war.
By its very superficiality (which is necessary by the size of the subject) it also reminded me to be wary of all VSIs (and historical summaries). While WWII is an historical subject where an amateur historian can feel comfortable feeling she knows the general territory enough to perhaps not need a VSI (thus both appreciate it and desparage it at the same time), other subjects covered by VSI aren't necessarily as well-traveled, or understood, so must also come with a higher degree of, what? Skepticism?
Anyway, Weinberg covered a difficult subject well. He didn't blow himself up anywhere. That I, an amateur, could see.
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- Tad Davis
- 11-20-19
Broad in scope but curiously bloodless
Gerhard Weinberg has written a concise and informative, but not especially gripping, history of the Second World War.
As you might expect, the first two chapters lay the groundwork. One describes the aftermath of the Great War, especially on Germany: many provisions of the Treaty of Versailles were resented. Weinberg credits the negotiators of 1919 with an honest effort to grapple with a problem never seen before: the shift in the definition of statehood from loyalty to a dynasty to loyalty to “the nation.” Their solution — embracing national self-determination by plebiscite — failed, but their intentions were honorable. (He does not, unfortunately, have much to say about the economic wreckage that followed the war.)
The second chapter traces the beginning of Hitler’s plan for world domination.
After that, it's a whirlwind tour of the battlefields. Weinberg gives a broad summary of the developing action. One surprise (for me) was the pressure Germany put on Japan to enter the war in 1941. Although the Japanese plans were already well in hand, and developed without input from Germany, Weinberg makes it sound like they moved up their start date in response to German pressure.
He devotes a fair amount of attention to battlefronts outside Western Europe. The invasion of Russia and the subsequent retreat of the German army is given its due; so is the island-hopping of the Pacific theater. (While the conflict in China is covered briefly, less attention is given to action in the Balkans and in South Asia.)
Ilt's an excellent, well-proportioned narrative, but from my perspective it seems lacking in human interest. When you're trying to compress the greatest conflict in the history of the world into four hours, something has to give, and here it's mostly the personalities of the participants — and any sense of the conflict on a human scale. Weinberg includes a chapter about the home front, but he still doesn't convey a sense of the terrible suffering involved. The destruction of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other cities get a brief mention, but Weinberg doesn't pause to let you react. When he documents the appalling number of casualties of the war, especially in Russia, there's little sense of what it means in terms of human suffering. Twenty million? Thirty million? It's just a number. (On the other hand, he has a refreshing willingness to call the wholesale slaughter of civilians what it was: cold-blooded murder.)
I realize that my disappointment on this score says more about my expectations than it does about the book. Weinberg didn't write the kind of book about World War II that I wanted to read. (Max Hastings came closer, but his book is 8 times longer.) In fairness, that shouldn't count against him. He set out to write a clear, factual, “very short introduction” to the war, and that's what he's done. If that's what you're looking for, this is an excellent choice. It's a book you can listen to in an afternoon and come away with a sense of the basics.
Johnny Heller does a great job with the narration.
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- mike
- 10-06-24
Disjointed
The timeline was disjointed. I made it half way then looked elsewhere. It should not read like Joyce.
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- tariq s.siddiqi md
- 11-07-22
Weinberg
Biased story of a horrible carnage with some twisted facts I would like to read other authors as well
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