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Top of the pile
92
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
85/100Critics
96/100Scholars
94/100Author:
Richard Overy
Publisher:
Viking
Date:
April 5, 2022
One of Britain's most distinguished historians offers a comprehensive reassessment of World War II, arguing that this was the "last imperial war" and advocating for a more global perspective that looks beyond the typical focus on military conflict between the Allied and Axis states.
What The Reviewers Say
Mr. Overy’s imperial emphasis does, at times, play down the role of ideology.
Putin has proved the experts wrong. Still, let’s praise Overy’s stupendous achievement. Anybody interested in the why and how of boundless violence in the 20th century should make space for Blood and Ruins on his or her shelf. It will help you to grasp and revisit the carnage of 1931-45 as the largest event in human history. No continent, no ocean was spared, and Overy deftly weaves all the subplots into one planetary tapestry of merciless ideology and industrialized extermination. This book is not Eurocentric, but truly geocentric.
In his latest book, Overy reprises, updates and expands his coverage of the war. His masterly synthesis of the war’s vast literature and sources has never been bettered. The text may be long but it is unflagging and consistently illuminating. Overy’s narrative is enlivened by personal accounts of the wartime experience and the book’s many statistics tell their own story.
Richard Overy is the master historian of the Second World War and of what he calls the 'morbid age' that preceded it. This book is his magnum opus (in every sense of the phrase). It is a commanding global history of the conflict that brings together its geopolitical and geostrategic elements with a stringent analysis of its many dimensions.
