Book description
Today Italy is a land of beauty and prosperity but in 1944-45 it had
become a place of nightmares, a land of violence, war, and destruction.
James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly documents the German
advance to the stalemate of the Gothic line and a segment of Italian
history that has been largely neglected.
The war in Italy was the most destructive campaign in the west as the
Allies and Germans fought a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict
up the mountainous leg of Italy during the last twelve months of the
Second World War. For front-line troops, casualties rates at Cassino and
then along the notorious Gothic Line were as high as they had been along
the Western Front in the First World War. There were further
similarities too: blasted landscapes, rain and mud. For the men who
fought there, Italy really was the hardest campaign.
And while the Allies and Germans were slogging it out through the
mountains, the Italians were fighting their own battles, one where
Partisans and Fascists were pitted against each other in a bloody civil
war. Around them, civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror
and anarchy while, in the wake of the Allied advance, beleaguered and
impoverished Italians were forced to pick their way through the ruins of
their homes and country and often forced into making terrible and
heart-rending decisions in order to survive.
'Italy's Sorrow' is the first account of the war in that most beautiful
of countries to tell the story from all sides and to include the
experiences of soldiers and civilians alike. Offering extensive new
research, it weaves together the drama and tragedy of a terrible year of
war with new perspectives and material on some of the most debated
episodes to have emerged from the Second World War. It is a magnificent
achievement by one of our finest young military historians. 'James
Holland has written his best book yet, a gripping, yet compassionate
account of the terrible war in Italy, with a memorable depiction of
civilian suffering.' Antony Beevor
Praise for 'Together We Stand':
'Anyone who wants to know how it felt to fight in the desert war should
read Holland's book. It represents a remarkable collation of personal
experience and sensible historical judgments.' Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph
'Holland has produced a wonderful book whose pace…never seems to
flag…he is a master at evoking time and place, with haunting
descriptions of the desert landscape…If there is a better book on the
North African campaign, I haven't read it.' Daily Telegraph, Saul David
James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and studied history at
Durham University. He has worked for several London publishing houses
and has written for a number of national newspapers and magazines. He is
the author of 'Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-1943',
'Together We Stand', 'Heroes' and a novel, 'The Burning Blue'. Married
with a son, he lives near Salisbury.
