Superb account of the last two years of the war in Europe - written with Hastings' wonderful combination of small anecdote and overall strategy. Lots of it is familiar - D Day, Arnhem, Patton, Ike, Hitler, concentration camps, the Bulge, rape-happy Russians - but plenty of less so, particularly the battles in the East.
Thepoor quality of much of the Allied troops (in particular the Canadians), Monty's dodgy leadership for all his talents, Ike's lack of imagination, Patton probably over-reacted, the failure of the Allies to press on aggressively enough after Normandy (the worry about sacrificing lives may have caused more lives to be lost in the long run by not pushing for victory at key times), the horrors the German leadership unleashed on their own people although many Germans were complicit in it, the suffering of Holland, the boat disaster in the Baltic, East Prussia. I think Hastings goes on too long about how much better fighters the Germans and Russians were than the West (at times it was like "alright already") and I don't enjoy reading about the Allies European campaign - something about it depresses me - but this is an excellent book.
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