No Simple Victory
World War II in Europe, 1939-1945
Book - 2007
A leading historian re-examines World War II and its outcome. Davies asks readers to reconsider what they know about World War II, and how the received wisdom might be biased or incorrect. He poses simple questions that have complicated and unexpected answers. For instance, Can you name the five biggest battles of the war in Europe? Or, What were the main political ideologies that were contending for supremacy? The answers to these and other questions--and the implications of those answers--will surprise even those who feel that they are experts on the subject.--From publisher description.
Publisher:
New York : Viking, 2007
Edition:
First American edition
ISBN:
9780670018321
0670018325
0670018325
Branch Call Number:
940.534 Da
Description:
ix, 544 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Additional Contributors:


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DaleFavier
Jul 19, 2013
"The Cold War descended before any outline consensus had been established concerning the conflict of 1939-45, and for nearly fifty years it acted as a vast dark barrier against all attempts to illuminate numerous crucial but controversial aspects."

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Add a Comment🇷🇺 As Stalin put it, Britain supplied the time, America supplied the money, and Russia supplied the blood. If it weren't for the Red Army, we'd still be chasing Rommel's grandson around in Africa.
Davies' approach is somewhat elephantine: he laboriously goes through a number of different topics and conscientiously evaluates all the players in WW II in Europe by the same standards. But the upshot is a breathtaking re-evaluation of the whole conflict, with the Eastern front in its rightful place as the center of the war's gravity, and Kursk (not Normandy, nor, God help us, El Alamein) as the climactic battle of the war. And for once we have a sweeping narrative of the war by someone who understands that Poland and the Ukraine (for example) were not just white spaces on the map to have battles in -- they were people's homes.