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.