Book description
Although 50 years have passed since the end of World War II, there has
as yet been no definitive history of that conflict. Existing histories
have raised as many questions as they answer: Did Roosevelt have
foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbour? Could the Allies have
invaded France before 1944? Might bombing the Auschwitz railway have
impeded the course of the Holocaust? John Keegan here assesses the
literature that has emerged from World War II - and the controversies it
has generated - in a book that combines stunning erudition with crisp
prose and highly personal discernment. John Keegan is the Defence
Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Britain's foremost military historian.
The Reith Lecturer in 1998, he is the author of many bestselling books
including The Face of Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, Battle at Sea, The
Second World War, A History of Warfare (awarded the Duff Cooper Prize),
Warpaths, The Battle for History, The First World War, and most
recently, Intelligence in War. For many years John Keegan was the Senior
Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst,
and he has been a Fellow of Princeton University and Delmas
Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar. He is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature. He received the OBE in the Gulf War honours
list, and was knighted in the Millennium honours list in 1999.
