A New History of the Second World War - The Storm of War

Outstanding on all counts. A finely detailed summary of all the decisions as to why Hitler lost the war. Plus the Japanese fiascos that gave us the upper hand early in the war. The atomic bomb was necessary but we would have won regardless. And I was just about to get drafted into the Pacific battles.

Roberts manages to distill the history of the war into a single readable volume, and ties it together well thematically. While he doesn't cover every detail, I found a number of observations and pieces of research in here that I hadn't encountered in previous reading on the war.

excellent synopsis on WWII, really made it clear and I loved his reason, Hitler started the war
because he was a Nazi, and lost it because he was a Nazi! Ideology is something to cause great concern.

I purchased this after watching the author interviewed by Peter Robinson and while I was re-reading The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. I had high hopes for this book after all the praised heaped upon it. However, more than the mistakes what bugged me most about this book was the author's liberal use of one line opinions in the conclusion chapter no supporting materials.

I was hoping for something special like Wages of Destruction but it never arrived. There is not anything here to justify..."A New History of the Second World War". If you want that read Wages of Destruction.

I loved this book, it's a very comprehensive account about WWII. It covers pretty much all events of this world tragedy, and I couldn't stop reading until I finished. I just think it could be less of the descriptions of weaponry and tactics (this was the reason I kind of didn't like Anthony Beavor's "Stalingrad"). If you need to read just one book about WWII, read this one.

Far from being a "populist history" or providing new insights, this is just another rehash of the pro-British military establishment point of view. Basically the author feels that the ever-cautious British General Staff and field commanders were always right vs. the frequently misguided Churchill and the always rash Americans. The author has given due credit to the Soviet contributions, however that has been the case with most western historians since the end of the Cold War. The discussions of personalities, Montgomery vs. Patton, etc, read as cliched and very dated. The author likewise spends a great deal of time on the key role of codes and codebreaking, but nothing groundbreaking that hasn't been part of the historical discussion for a generation. All in all I don't find anything in this book, the research or the historical interpretation, that hasn't been presented many, many times before by more facile writers.

I had thoroughly enjoyed this until I got to Chapter 6-- "Tokyo Typhoon" where the Mr. Roberts began to draw unsupportable conclusions (at least based on my years of in depth reading about the Pearl Harbor attack and it's origins).

He says that: "The news [of USS WARD's attack on a suspected submarine off the harbor entrance] ought to have put the base on to full alert, but nothing happened." While it's true that nothing happened, there was no reason for a full alert.

"A full alert --against what??

Events showed that NOBODY expected the massive, carrier-based Japanese Navy air attack. Mr. Roberts seems to have concluded that everyone at Pearl was waiting for ADM Kimmel and LTGEN SHORT to say: "Ah, finally the Japanese attack on US has started. Aux barricades!" Why should they have?

He opined: "America was under no legal or moral obligation to sell high octane aviation fuel and other petroleum products to an empire that she knew would use them for imperialist oppression, any more than the embargo on those sales gave Japan the right to attack the United States. (In fact, the oil embargo was imposed without the President's knowledge, although he did nothing to revoke the decision once it had been taken.) Talking about "rights" in the context of how the full embargo would effect Japan's possible courses of action is ridiculous. Regardless of what FDR's sycophant biographer may have written, it stretches credulity to believe that the President had no knowledge of the imposition of the full embargo. That was tantamount to believing that Hitler was unaware of "The Final Solution."

In any event, FDR as a "former naval person", GEN Marshall, ADMs Hart and King should have been throughly familiar with Sun-Tzu's "Art of War" in which he wrote:

"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself."

They blew it on the third "If" ...

Although Mr. Roberts later admitted that FDR and his advisors badly misjudged the Japanese, it was their failure at the outset to understand the Japanese culture and mindset that precipitated Japan's violent reaction.

He said that ADM Kimmel had sent LEXINGTON and ENTERPRISE west to Midway and Wake with additional fighters onboard to support them in case war broke out. ... not quite accurate.

They were sent out separately to FERRY airplanes to those two island outposts. ENTERPRISE had completed her delivery and was returning to Pearl Harbor when the attack took place. She was near enough that she had flown off two of her squadrons to Ford Island prior to entering port herself -- a common practice. Much to their surprise and chagrin, these planes arrived during the attack.

LEXINGTON had been enroute from Pearl to Midway for only two days when she heard of the attack and never got to Midway. Instead she joined a fruitless search to the south and southwest -- what was believed to be the most likely direction from which the Japanese attack could have originated.

Roberts called that one of the only correct decisions that ADM Kimmel made. That's absurd. Kimmel's decision to send more planes to reinforce Wake and Midway was completely unrelated to keeping the carriers out of harm's way during the attack. It was pure luck that neither carrier was present during the attack. Kimmel's best decision, if it can be properly called one, was NOT having the rest of the fleet at sea.

At the top of page 190 he asserts that Kimmel and Short were "...both culpably negligible and complacent" -- and then moves on. Somehow, Kimmel and Short were supposed to divine from:"This dispatch is considered to be a war warning ... " and "Execute appropriate defensive deployment" exactly what FDR, Marshall and Stark had in mind. Perhaps they should've asked for clarification as to what "appropriate defensive deployment" was supposed to mean. Perhaps Washington should have told them to "Advise immediately what defensive measures you have implemented." Neither Pearl nor Washington did.

Yet at the bottom of the same page he wrote: "The Administration's expectation was that the blow would initially fall on British and Durch possessions in South_East Asia, and possibly the American-controlled Philippines, and nothing from the cryptologists could have prepared them for what was about to happen. Kimmel and Short didn't have direct access to "Magic" so they didn't have as much information on which to base their decisions as Washington -- or Manila did.

One can look back with 20/20 hindsight at what had been done at Pearl and on Oahu in response to Washington's "warnings" and conclude that they were the wrong measures to take. But to assert that Kimmel and Short were "... both culpabaly negligent and complacent" because of them, whereas Washington -- and Manila -- weren't, is sheer folly. Kimmel and Short WERE scapegoated and publicly reviled for the rest of their lives. Washington was "stunned" but escaped any culpability.

MacArthur, who had plenty of advance knowledge of Japan's intentions and knew five hours before the sun rose in Manila that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, dithered. His inaction allowed his air force to effectively be destroyed on the day war started, yet he stayed in command without a peep from Washington. If anyone should have been sacked it was him. He went on to became a national hero. (MacArthur, Bradley and Arnold are the only Generals of the Army who have not had a US Navy ship named for them. The Navy holds no grudge against Bradley and Arnold, but "Dugout Doug" MacArthur is a different case.)

I could go on about this chapter, but suffice it to say that it took a "star" away from my rating all by itself.

In the continuing line of historical summaries of WWII, the Storm of War stands out by nature of the author's fresh look at the "inside" story of attitudes and actions taken by Axis leaders. These "gems" are well supported by the words of the very people associated, for example, with Nazi and Soviet atrocities in Europe, both in the East and West. This puts to rest the popular contention that only SS military leaders ordered and supported such actions.

Only complaint is it was too short! A very engaging, insightful and informative book. I enjoyed every page. I have read scores of books on ww2 and worried that I would read nothing new, but that was not the case. The pace was spot on and the author's conclusions never seemed whacky or out of context to the times. Every scholar of the war could benefit from the book.

Having lived as a child in Manchester England through the Blitz and all of World War 2, I found the book under review most informative. I could hardly put the book down and I learnt a lot about this dreadful war. I found the book easy to read and detailed where necessary. I have read many books on the subject but this book surpasses them all. The main theme, howcome and why the Nazis lost the war, is fascinating and I personally agree with the conclusions. I bought the book shortly after viewing an excellent interview with the author on the Bloomberg TV channel. For those interested or studying World War 2, it is a must.

Only having read this book do I realise how lucky we are today to have democracy. We wern't far off having a world ruled by despots.
In addition, having read the book , do I realise the enoumous debt democracy owes to another despot, viz Stalin. The book was riveting from start to finish

The topic and the information provided is incredibly interesting but the author is difficult to read because of his overly lengthy and sometimes run-on sentences and too frequently inserted parenthetical phrases.

This is history at its best. Roberts comes to the job of reviewing World War II with a great perspective on the major decision-makers in the early days of the war, Churchill, Roosevelt, Marshall and Alan Brooke, in his earlier book, Masters and Commanders. These great leaders faded in importance as Hitler made his single most fateful decision, to attack the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. This ultimately cost Russia more than half of all the fatalities in the war, more than 25 million human souls, but it bled the German armies of their vital strength. Apart from minor victories, the German army never again won a major battle. Roberts has a sweeping command of facts, many of which were new to me. In addition, his opinions are well argued and easy to follow. This is a wonderful book, so well thought through and so well written.

This is THE best single volume history of World War II that I have ever read. The author sets out to demonstrate how Hitler lost his own war and believe me it is FASCINATING. He uses transcripts from taped conversations between Hitler and his generals, Nuremburg testimony, quotes from soldiers, sailors, admirals and designers of bombs as well as succinct descriptions of battles (and what went wrong). The war in the Pacific is not ignored by any means - but the main subject of the book is Hitler's lost cause.

I found myself doing the same thing I do with a good novel, "Just one more chapter and THEN I'll go to bed..." It was well-written, engaging, hard-hitting and even had some humorous moments, such as little known quotes from General Patton.

You will read about the politics, the strategies, the disasters and the in-fighting. And you will read the stark statistics and the individual stories of human kindness and courage and endurance amidst the horrors of unbelievable cruelty.

This is not a comfortable read. It is not for those with weak stomachs or those who refuse to believe that evil exists in this world. Highly recommended. Suitable for mature teens and up.

SUMMARY: Andrew Roberts contends Hitler was first, a National Socialist and second, a practical war leader. Hitler placed Nazi ideology ahead of political and military concerns which lead to defeat. Rather than turn the Soviet people against Stalin, German army treated them as sub-human. Instead of enlisting Jewish scientist in the war effort, Nazism drove them to Britain and the USA. Before finishing off the United Kingdom, Hitler turned east towards the Soviet Union to build the Greater Germany of his Nazi dreams. German women did not work in German industry on the levels of British women, but remained in the home as dictated by Nazi ideology. On and on the story went until Nazism went down to defeat.

BEST ABOUT THE BOOK: After 65 years since the end of World War II, Andrew Roberts was able to include numerous declassified reports, war diaries, and post-war comments by key players both allied and axis. Roberts also compares the leadership difference between Hitler, Churchill, FDR, and Stalin. The Fuhrer made all decisions on his own, whereas the other commanders, even Stalin, were open to suggestions. Hitler never visited a bombed out area whereas Churchill visited many areas of England after a bombing raid. The allied forces worked together while the axis never coordinated their strategy. Churchill and FDR were influenced by public opinion while Hitler never asked what the German people were thinking. Churchill was concerned about the British soldier while Hitler allowed the German soldier to endure the Russian winter ill prepared. "The Storm of War" includes more than just a list of battles, commanders, who won, and number killed. It provides battle analysis which many war books lack. He gives credit to the UK for providing time, the USA for providing weapons, and the USSR for providing blood to win the war.

WORST ABOUT THE BOOK: Andrew Roberts is British and it shows. His focus is in the following order: Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, and FDR. Even when discussing the Pacific War, Roberts covers only the British campaign in detail. His coverage of Japan, like most histories, consisted of a laundry list of battles, commanders, and causalities except when the British were involved. (Subtract one star for the Pacific War coverage) He puts Patton, Montgomery, and Bradley in the same emotional class. General Omar Bradley, I believe, was low key compared to the other two.

OVERALL: A good book full of insightful analysis and personal stories from the leaders and commanders involved. Andrew Roberts proved his point, Hitler and National Socialism were Germany's worse enemy. I'm glad Hitler and the Nazis didn't have "The Storm of War" prior to the war.

I was mildly disappointed in this Kindle version: it seems very truncated, and in several areas the paragraphs repeat and some sentences are not completed in thought before joined with the concluding phrase. Nothing new in this overview of the War, and only very slight attention given to the Pacific theater. Perhaps the text edition carries more information and pages, but I was not very satisfied with the quality of the Kindle edition. Overall, a good synopsis for the minor league student of war.

Andrew Roberts is a famous British historian and journalist, known particularly for his neo-conservative opinions and his book on the Earl of Halifax, onetime Foreign Minister of Great Britain and Churchill's archenemy in the early years of World War II. Not previously firsthand familiar with any of his works, I picked up this book drawn largely by the enthusiatic reviews and the author's fine reputation; but putting it down, I am at a loss to figure out how ever he could have amassed it.

There is virtually nothing new in this massive tome, nor should one expect there to be, as it is based overwhelmingly on secondary and tertiary sources; contrary to the rave reviews, easily some 95+ % of Roberts's notes refer to previous syntheses. (The very limited use of primary sources which is in evidence seems confined largely to trivialities and "flavor text" items.) Throughout, the received wisdom one could easily have picked up a decade ago (or two, or three) is trumpeted. The usual saints and demigods are described in the usual hagiographic terms: Manstein (who surely deserves praise, but not so much as he gets), Rommel (the same, but more so), and Zhukov (easily the most overadvertised general of the whole war), to name a few. Similarly, Hitler, Keitel, Göring and the "usual suspects" of the Nazi horror gallery are castigated as bunglers and incompetents in the same trite, stereotyped fashion as any reader of pop-history will have come to expect. Original insights are as lacking as original data. Moreover, the book, despite professing to cover the whole war, is woefully Anglocentric in its selection. A mere three (out of eighteen) chapters concern themselves with the Pacific theater, and superficially at that; China is basically ignored altogether, as is the American home front. While Roberts does not ignore the US forces in Europe, his understanding of them appears quite limited from what he evidences here. Not too surprisingly, this is even more true of his attempts at penetrating the more distant German and Soviet sides of things, whether dealing with privates or generals.

Errors also abound, in great matters and small. Large numbers of them have already been related by other reviewers, hence there is little need to repeat them here; however, there are many more that have not hitherto been mentioned. At several points, the author himself appears confused about basic data, offering different version of important facts in different places. Thus, while he generally argues the view that Hitler wanted war with England in 1939, in one place he reveals (albeit in a clumsily phrased way) that as late as 1939, Hitler and his admirals based their entire scheme of naval procurement for the coming decade (the so-called "Z Plan") on the idea that no conflict with Britain was remotely likely before 1944 at the earliest. This looks like an inconsistency, where source material and author's fiat do not agree. Similarly, while on p. 100 Roberts acknowledges that it was in fact Churchill who initiated indiscriminate terror bombing of civilians as a military policy -- Even praising this as a brilliant psychological stratagem -- in his later chapter on the terror bombing of German cities he incongruously argues that this was begun as a justified revenge for previous German terror bombing of Britain! Who "started it" seems to depend on what looks best for Churchill in any given argument. Incredibly sloppy work to spring out of any acclaimed academic's pen, but especially so when coming from the man touted by the "Economist" magazine as "Britain's finest military historian"(!).

Thus far we have seen that this is a mediocre effort, as far as the simple facts go. If that was its sole offense, it would be fit to end the review here. But there are further, and greater, problems as well, as Roberts touches on a number of morally sensitive issues. Treading on this emotive ground, it is certainly no easy task to remain objective and dispassionate; the awful war crimes produced by all sides, and especially the great European and Asian dictatorships, militate against a strictly (and, some would say, coldly) sober assessment. I am therefore prepared to cut aggrieved chroniclers some slack on these topics. But Roberts has generated such an unbalanced and unsatisfactory treatment that it further undermines whatever value the rest of his analysis might still be accounted. The result is a product which is, so I believe, not merely morally unsound, but in part downright Pharisaic in its myopia.

A simple comparison may introduce these problematic aspects. In this history, the Jewish genocide receives major attention: a whole chapter of its own, in fact, with a religiously themed title ("The Everlasting Shame of Mankind"). And it is surely unobjectionable that the victims of Nazism be remembered. But are they the only ones who should be? For there is no similar chapter covering the Soviet genocides of even more millions of non-belligerent civilians of a dozen nations. The man-made famine in Bengal, in which the mismanagement and malign neglect of Churchill's government caused the needless death by starvation of perhaps as many as three or four million Indians, is not even mentioned in a single sentence. Nor, save possibly in some throwaway line I might have missed, is anything said about the millions of civilians who perished due to the war crimes of the various Chinese factions in the Sino-Japanese War. Does Andrew Roberts not think these non-European victims worth remembering at all? He might not consider them important enough to grant their sad fates chapters of their own, but could they not have at least a single paragraph each? There ought to be room for that much in a volume of this size.

Certainly it is not due to a weak stomach or lack of space that such "minor" details are omitted. Elsewhere, and throughout, Roberts positively wallows in any mention of German or Japanese war crimes with an almost prurient delight; he constantly emphasizes these as much as possible, to the point of conjuring the ghosts of old myths (such as that of the Germans making soap from corpses) and greatly inflating the number of victims of Axis brutality in many instances. His treatment of Allied war crimes is rather different. For example, on page 430 he claims 17,000 dead in the German bombings of the Yugoslavian capital of Belgrade in 1941 -- A number taken out of Churchill's memoirs, but which actually comes much closer to the truth if one knocks off a nought from it. (The Titoist Communist government of Yugoslavia, which certainly had no reason to be soft on the Germans, estimated some 1,500 casualties in its own post-war investigation.) By contrast, he settles for the most ultra-conservative, apologetically low figure that has been argued for the number of deaths caused by the controversial Allied bombing of the German city of Dresden late in the war: 20,000, which of course is still a terrifying total, minimized though it is (p. 456). Likewise, details of Japanese war crimes in the Pacific are lovingly related at great length. But nothing is said of the habit of certain US units there to take no prisoners, or to make horrific souvenirs of dead Japanese servicemen's bones, sometimes even sending them by mail as gifts to sweethearts at home (as a famous photo article in "Life" magazine attests).

I hasten to add that in mentioning such disagreeable matters, I do not in any way intend to cast any slight on the millions of soldiers and sailors who fought largely blamelessly in the US Armed Forces. I am not anti-military, and I consider it despicable to generalize from individual examples of depravity when judging a whole nation's armed services. But if we expect this courtesy, must we not also grant it to our own adversaries? Such is the point I wish to make, and the one where I believe Roberts badly fails, as he portrays the Axis forces in downright demonic terms: as uniformly villainous collectives of criminals, while glossing over our own "everlasting shames" wherever possible, and indeed excusing them where not.

We offer one final example of this one-sidedness, which may illustrate why I believe Roberts's final product to be morally unsound. As we have already seen, he cannot quite make up his mind on which side in the war initiated the horrors of terror bombing of civilians. But he is very clear on whose bombing he believes *justified* in retrospect:

"Whereas the Luftwaffe flattened 400 acres of London, the RAF and USAAF turned 6,247 acres of Berlin into little more than rubble. No fewer than sixty major German industrial cities suffered colossal material damage during the Second World War. Yet Germany is today such a model democracy, and so pacific in her foreign policy, partly because of the terrible retribution that that war visited upon her. If the Second World War had not seen civilian casualties on German soil, just as the Great War had not, a new spirit of revanchism might have been rekindled there." (pp. 459-60)

In other words, many hundreds of thousands of German women and children had to be burned in order to crush Germany's spirit completely -- A good and desirable end, which seemingly is held to excuse the abominable means used. Will anyone bet against me if I wager that if a Nazi had said something like this to justify, for example, the random shooting of civilians in Poland, pour encourager les autres, Roberts would decry it as proof positive of our hypothetical Nazi's moral bankruptcy? Incidentally, he would be right, too.

* * * * *

Altogether, this book is most charitably described as revenant war propaganda. Our Pharisaic author has produced a "New" history which has very little that is actually new in it, save some distasteful apologetics for Churchill's less palatable policies. Consequently, "The Storm of War" is of slight value to the thoughtful reader: the veteran student will learn little from it; the neophyte will be confused, and may easily learn many half-truths and, indeed, downright falsehoods; and both are likely to be offended by at least some parts of the authorial commentary. A reader desiring an Anglocentric military history of World War II is far better served by J. F. C. Fuller's old but still excellent study, or perhaps Sir Basil Liddell Hart's mighty effort.

There isn't much to reccommend here. Roberts concentrates entirely on the Russian and European experiences in WWII while almost entirely dismissing the Pacific campaigns that finally brought Japan to its knees. The only "new history" seems to be a few anecdotes concerning Hitler and some of his cronies. But if you're going to buy this clunker, by all means buy the hardback...the e-book version is a mess. Extraneous pieces of non-pertinent sentences continuously pop up in paragraphs, or whole paragraphs are repeated. Maps are so small as to be unreadable. There's a long list of illustrations cited in the table of contents...but no illustrations anywhere in the book. Huge disappointment.

Perhaps Professor Roberts’ greatest achievement in writing “The Storm of War” was his shoe-horning such a comprehensive history of World War II into a single volume, his frugal recounting of Japan’s war with China notwithstanding. This account of the struggle includes both the results of older scholarship and what we’ve learned about it at this further remove.But, maybe more importantly for us Americans born and raised in the immediate shadow of WWII with its multitude of histories, novels, and films glorifying the role of the American military contribution, it’s an entirely British view of not only the conflict and it participants, but also the many rivalries and prejudices that shaped it. This is exactly why any American with and interest in WW II should read this book.
The author’s main thrust in this book is to look at why the Axis lost the war and whether or not this loss was inevitable. In this effort, he does an excellent job describing the major mistakes of the Axis leaders and the consequences of each. Space is given also to mistakes of the Allied leaders that missed opportunities for an early conclusion, protracted the war unnecessarily, or lead to senseless civilian and military casualties.
Although Professor Roberts strives assiduously to be impartial in his accounting the mid-twentieth centuries most devastating calamity, he sometimes comes off as a British apologist. For this and the inadequate treatment of Japan’s war in China he loses a half a star.
4.5 Stars
Recommended: Highly

This is the first one-volume history of World War II that I'd really place in a category of reevaluation by an author who views the war from a comfortable distance in time, but then I'm not expert, not even, really, an amateur aficionado even though I've read a lot about the war, including biographies of the personalities and memoirs by the participants.

Roberts' thesis is that the Allies did not so much win the war as Hitler lost it, in large part by making independent judgments based on intuition and ideology. He was not a military strategist and didn't trust anyone who was. The smarter his generals, the more likely he was to fire them, as he did von Rundstedt and Guderian more than once, or ignore them when he didn't like their advice as he often did von Manstein who was maybe his best strategist.

According to Roberts, Hitler's biggest misjudgment was invading Russia in June of 1941 thereby forcing Germany to fight thereafter on two fronts. He had already made a major error in not pursuing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who made the historic evacuation from Dunkirk--which the German army could had prevented had Hitler not called them off. He had not invaded England, having lost the air war of 1940 (The Battle of Britain). He had not beefed up his Navy--especially the submarines which tied up Atlantic shipping until 1943 but thereafter hadn't the wherewith all (submarines mainly) to continue--or his Air Force whose fighter planes were clearly inferior to Britain's. (He didn't halt airplane design or manufacturing but did force a new fighter to be made into a bomber which left him vulnerable in Russia.) He left all that hanging and went after the USSR, seeking "lebensraum" for the German people and success where Napoleon had failed.

Hitler's second biggest error according to Roberts was declaring war on the United States in December 1941 in the wake of Pearl Harbor. He was not under treaty obligations to Japan to do so and probably would not have felt bound by the treaty had he been so. But declaring war allowed Roosevelt to marshal the enormous (comparatively speaking) resources of the US (war materiel, oil, manufacturing capability) to aid the Western Allies as had not been possible before due to widespread isolationist feeling in the US. Roosevelt had maneuvered some deals already to aid Britain and the Allies, but had no trouble putting the might of the industrial US behind the Allies once Hitler had declared war.

Another major error was Hitler's campaign to rid the continent of Europe of its Jews. Here was a clear case of ideology trumping strategy. Laying aside all moral issues, Hitler tied up resources and wasted valuable personnel, loyal citizens who could have been badly needed soldiers and workers. Roberts tackles the Holocaust head on in this book, and not only in practical terms.

In fact, Roberts doesn't skirt moral issues at all in this book, though he finds that some of the conventional moral outrage in the years following 1945 has been misplaced, namely the dropping of the atomic bomb which undoubtedly saved many Allied lives and shorted by war by years. He also questions the condemnation of the fire bombing of Dresden, pointing out legitimate ways in which the city was a military target and asserting that more recent estimates of the number of casualties suggest far fewer were killed than, for instance, Vonnegut assumed in Slaughterhouse Five.

One of the more interesting moral issues he raises is that of the policy of saturation bombing which resulted in far more destruction of German cities than the the Germans inflicted on London or Antwerp. He found little disagreement with the policy at the time, either in the military or among allied populations. Roberts believes that it was only mass destruction of German cities and complete disruption of civil life that ultimately erased the Prussian military tradition which led Germany to start major wars twice in half a century and replaced it with a profoundly non-military-oriented society which hesitates even to participate in NATO missions today.

Generally too Andrews reassesses the ongoing debate on the effectiveness of bombing generally and decides that the post-war analysis which found the bombing relatively ineffective to be somewhat short-sighted.

Another major thread in this book is the role of the USSR. The book is full of the kind of statistics that can only be accumulated and analyzed objectively long after the war, but the statistics show what everyone now recognizes but rarely talks about in this world war, that the major destruction and death occurred in Russia. I have not read Beevor's Stalingrad (which has been on my list for awhile) but I was impressed by Roberts' coverage of the decisive battles of Stalingrad and Kursk in 1943. In assessing major errors of decision makers, Roberts, like most others, judges Stalin's major error to have been trusting Hitler, pointing out that Stalin otherwise never trusted anyone.

An interesting point that Roberts makes throughout this book is that of the cooperation among the Allies which, painful as it was in many ways, was a key to their success. Not only did the Axis not have that kind of cooperation, there was not even the free expression of ideas among the German decision makers since Hitler made all decisions and always punished his generals when they made independent decisions. "Strategic Retreat" was just not in his vocabulary. His closest generals, Keitel and Jodl, were among the least effective thinkers and strategists. Interestingly as tenuous as was the negotiations among Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, Roberts found that Stalin listened to his generals and oversaw far more productive cooperation with his advisors than did Hitler.

But speaking of alliances, Roberts writes extensively on British and American cooperation--and the seething egos which often underlay cooperative decisions. There were a bunch of egos among the Allies: effective strategists like Montgomery and Paton who usually had to be forced to share and who competed rigorously with each other and generals like Mark Clark who were also self-aggrandizing but less effective. Roberts acknowledges MacArthur as another ego, but actually says relatively little about him. I wasn't entirely happy with his treatment of Stillwell--or indeed of the whole China situation. In the Far East, Andrews focuses mostly on General William Slim, about whom I knew little, seeing him as one of the underappreciated heroes of the war.

I recommend this book whole-heartedly as a one-volume history of WWII which reassesses the war from a distance in time not achieved by those who actually participated or grew up in its wake revering "The Greatest Generation". It is told from a British perspective and as such possibly minimizes the war in the Pacific some, but he brings to the fore the strategic "Germany first" decision which the US and Britain agreed upon. Of course that was made possible also by Hitler's strategic mistake in declaring war on the US in 1941.

SUMMARY: Andrew Roberts contends Hitler was first, a National Socialist and second, a practical war leader. Hitler placed Nazi ideology ahead of political and military concerns which lead to defeat. Rather than turn the Soviet people against Stalin, German army treated them as sub-human. Instead of enlisting Jewish scientist in the war effort, Nazism drove them to Britain and the USA. Before finishing off the United Kingdom, Hitler turned east towards the Soviet Union to build the Greater Germany of his Nazi dreams. German women did not work in German industry on the levels of British women, but remained in the home as dictated by Nazi ideology. On and on the story went until Nazism went down to defeat.

BEST ABOUT THE BOOK: After 65 years since the end of World War II, Andrew Roberts was able to include numerous declassified reports, war diaries, and post-war comments by key players both allied and axis. Roberts also compares the leadership difference between Hitler, Churchill, FDR, and Stalin. The Fuhrer made all decisions on his own, whereas the other commanders, even Stalin, were open to suggestions. Hitler never visited a bombed out area whereas Churchill visited many areas of England after a bombing raid. The allied forces worked together while the axis never coordinated their strategy. Churchill and FDR were influenced by public opinion while Hitler never asked what the German people were thinking. Churchill was concerned about the British soldier while Hitler allowed the German soldier to endure the Russian winter ill prepared. "The Storm of War" includes more than just a list of battles, commanders, who won, and number killed. It provides battle analysis which many war books lack. He gives credit to the UK for providing time, the USA for providing weapons, and the USSR for providing blood to win the war.

WORST ABOUT THE BOOK: Andrew Roberts is British and it shows. His focus is in the following order: Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, and FDR. Even when discussing the Pacific War, Roberts covers only the British campaign in detail. His coverage of Japan, like most histories, consisted of a laundry list of battles, commanders, and causalities except when the British were involved. (Subtract one star for the Pacific War coverage) He puts Patton, Montgomery, and Bradley in the same emotional class. General Omar Bradley, I believe, was low key compared to the other two.

OVERALL: A good book full of insightful analysis and personal stories from the leaders and commanders involved. Andrew Roberts proved his point, Hitler and National Socialism were Germany's worse enemy. I'm glad Hitler and the Nazis didn't have "The Storm of War" prior to the war.

What intrigued me about this volume was that Andrew Roberts visited much of the ground that this volume covers. As a researcher, I'm particularly impressed by the thoroughness of the annotations and indexing. If you are interested in further reading, just explore the author's bibliography and you've got an excellent start.

The author's basic premise is that we did not so much win the war as Adolph Hitler's megalomania and insecurity lost it for him. He didn't trust people who were smarter than he was. It's not a new idea, but well documented and articulated.

He also covers the debate regarding bombing Japan, which is one we should remember. I was disappointed in the discussion of the Manhattan Project, because that area is a particular interest of mine. Still, the reference section was quite helpful.

The narrative here is very readable for a scholarly work. I think the author's work to travel to many of the locales of the story definitely paid off.

Rebecca Kyle, April 2011

The Storm of War is a one volume military history of the horrors of World War II. It's author is British historian Andrew Roberts. Roberts enters the ranks of the foremost historians of the war joining such distinguished fellow Brits as Ian Kershaw; Basil Liddell-Hart,Richard Overy,John Keegan and Max Hastings. This is a great book! If I were teaching World War II in college this is the primary modern history of the conflict which I would utilize. Roberts writes in a style which makes complex battles and personalities easier to comprehend. Though he is British he is critical of British leaders and gives the American war effort respect and keen analysis.
In World War II the British bought time against the Germans until the Commonweath nations and the United States came to their aid. The Soviets poured blood in the great patriotic war against the Nazis and the USA provided the tools of war to keep to achieve unconditional surrender against the evil Axis. Thank God that the Allies won the bloodiest and most horrendous war ever fought on this globe!
World War II (1939-45) cost over 50 million lives (approximately 27 million Soviets died) cost over 1.5 trillion dollars and lasted 2417 days of terror and death. Roberts covers all the major campaigns: Europe, the Far East, the Africa littoral and everywhere the Nazis and Japanese were challenged for world hegemony. Bloody conflicts such as Dunkirk; D-Day; Kursk; Leningrad; Moscow, the Pacific war and the siege of Stalingrad are given many pages. Roberts is excellent in his discussion of the air and sea war and in his description of weaponry used in the worldwide conflict. Roberts has a sage understanding of such wartime leaders as FDR; Churchill: Stalin; Hitler and the men who led their legions including Eisenhower, George C. MarshallPatton, Montgomery, Slim, Guderain, Manstein and Runstadt. Hitler should have listened to his senior generals in the waging of the war.
Valuable in Roberts analysis are the grievous and fatal mistakes made by Adolf Hitler:

1, The failure to continue with the attack on the British Expeditionary Force which was trapped at Dunkirk.
2. Hitler's greatest blunder was the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. He failed to win over Stalin's captive subjects; instead the Nazis unleashed a reign of terror everywhere they went. 8 out of 10 Nazis died due to Soviet arms.
3. By declaring war on the United States Hitle and Germany lost the war since the United States was the greatest producer of weapons and equipment in the global conflict.
4. The failure of the Axis powers to work together. Hitler should have advised the Japanese to launch an attack on Russia. He did not do so.
5. The failure to produce advanced rocketry and other weapons in enough time to win the war.
6. Hitler did not trust his generals and relied too much on his own judgment regardng miltary strategy.
7. Hitler murdered many Jewish scientists and intellectuals as well as murdering in the concentration camps millions of Jewish men and women who could have been used in wartime factory work in the Reich.
8. Unlike the Soviets and Allies the women of Germany were never called upon to serve in the Wermacht or work outside the home.
The horrible evil of Nazi rule is manifested by the incredible cruelness of the Holocaust.
The results of the war led to the Soviets taking over Eastern Europe; the demise of the Britsh Empire and the emergence of the United States as the greatest global power. The British lost their empire and the French began the process of again becoming a continental power. Germany is today a stable democratic nation which has been reunited since the fall of Communism and the Berlin Wall in 1989.
This is a great book which will keep discerning readers up all night! Excellent historical research make this a classic!

Andrew Roberts' 2011 "The Storm of War" bills itself as a new history of the Second World War. Indeed, Roberts takes advantage of much recent scholarship to frame that conflict in nuanced perspective while addressing many of the lingering controversies, in what may be the most readable one volume account currently available.

Building on the success of 2010's "Masters and Commanders", his account of Anglo-American political and military cooperation, Roberts deals with the Second World War both chronologically and thematically. He deftly weaves together the opening battles of the war in Europe and the Pacific, the resulting military responses, and the struggles by political leaders to rationalize a global total war. Along the way, he mixes the broad strategic perspective with detailed close-ups of key individuals. Roberts livens up the long narrative with frank discussions of various controversies, such as the civilian casualties caused combined bomber offensive by Britain and the US, or whether the Nazi final solution for the Jews could have been stopped by allied bombing. Roberts is very ready to use recent research and newly released material to deliver some stingments on people and events.

Roberts' narrative tends to be Anglo-American centric, although the fighting in Russia gets very decent coverage. He is particularly adept at capturing the changing strategic perspective from London, Berlin, and Moscow. The war in the Pacific is unfortunately something of an afterthought, with coverage rather pro forma east of the Burma theaterr. The book includes a good selection of maps and photographs.

"The Storm of War" is very highly recommended to the general reader as an excellent and highly readable one volume history of the Second World War. The specialized student of the war may find Roberts' sharply worded conclusions well worth chewing over.

I Highly Recommend this Book!.

Andrew’s theme, that Hitler’s ideology and lack of ability to military strategic thinking resulted in the start of WWII and ultimately the demise Germany, is loosely threaded through most of this book. At the same time, the theme does not get in the way of giving the reader an excellent view of the full arc of WWII. Andrews covers everything from the invasion of Poland, to the magical defeat of Russians Forces by a badly outnumbered Finish forces, to why and how battles were fought from Africa to Iow Jima, to massive naval battles in the South Pacific, to final move by Truman to use the ultimate weapon. The book shows the absolute horror and depravity of many aspects of this epic struggle, including the fate of the Jews and the ability of leaders like Stalin and Hitler to put their own twisted world view ahead of the life of their own citizens and soldiers.

Though Andrews covers the six plus years of the war, he still is able to highlight many of the colorful and fascinating side players in the many struggles. Also, the heroism and sacrifice of so many is evident as you make your way through this book.

If you are like me, you have read several books about aspects of WWII, but needed to integrate the entire war together, I highly recommend this book.

"The Storm of War" is a brilliant, although not an entirely, fresh account of the Second World War. Mr. Roberts starts the book with the invasion of Poland by the Third Reich and ends his account with the surrender of Japan, reviewing all of the key events from 1939-1945. The main premise and question that Mr. Roberts attempts to answer throughout the book is - Why did Hitler lose the war? During the first two years of the war anyone could have made the (wrong) assumption that Hitler would win the war. Germany had conquered Poland, France, Holland, Norway and more with rather surprising and unsettling ease. At the time, Nazi Germany seemed to be unstoppable. This begs the question of why, indeed, did the tide shift against Nazi Germany? Mr. Roberts puts most of the blame on Hitler's poor skills as a military strategist who too often based his military strategy upon his Nazi ideology. And by doing that, he constantly put his Nazi beliefs before the best interest of Wehrmacht. Mr. Roberts discusses and analyses, at length, the key points in which Hitler made the wrong choices (such as the declaration of war against the US, Operation Barbarossa), which helped to turn the tide in the Allies' favor, eventually resulting in the fall of the Third Reich.

Mr. Roberts' tendency to add personal anecdotes of people who lived during these turbulent times adds great interest to the narrative, and helps shed some light on how people viewed the war. Mr. Roberts, for the most part, doesn't provide any world changing revelations regarding the war, though he does provide some new and unpublished information. This unpublished information is rather insignificant big picture-wise, although his analysis of Hitler's mistakes and the main events are superb. "The Storm of War" is military history at its best. The prose is crisp and the narrative grabs you from the beginning up to the very end.