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World War Two: A Short History, by Norman Stone
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After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous.
In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One. Adolf Hitler rode a tide of popular desperation and resentment to power in Germany, promptly making good on his promise to return the nation to its former economic and military strength. He bullied Europe into giving him his way, and in so doing backed the victors of the Great War into a corner. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany—a decision that, Stone argues, was utterly irrational. Yet Hitler had driven the world mad, and the rekindling of European hostilities soon grew to a conflagration that spread across the globe, fanned by political and racial ideologies more poisonous—and weaponry more destructive—than the world had ever seen. With commanding expertise, Stone leads readers through the escalation, climax, and mournful denouement of this sprawling conflict.
World War Two is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the twentieth century and its defining struggle.
- Sales Rank: #1047601 in Books
- Published on: 2013-01-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x 1.10" w x 5.60" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 272 pages
From Booklist
This is a compact book that manages to cover most of the major aspects of the titular conflict. Stone, who has taught history at Cambridge, Oxford, and in Turkey, writes in a rapid-fire but clear style; while his narrative necessarily moves quickly, he manages to insert some useful and sometimes provocative analyses. His work is often written from a European perspective, and Stone doesn’t hesitate to ravage European, especially British, leaders for their miscalculations that allowed Hitler to gain and then maintain power. On strictly military matters, Stone sometimes disputes conventional wisdom. For example, he asserts that Hitler’s Norwegian “victory” was actually a long-term defeat. Stone’s concluding chapter on the aftermath of the war is particularly well done, as he asserts that many of the unresolved issues in 1945 would not be settled until the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union. This is an ideal work for general readers who require an introduction to the causes, course, and results of the war. --Jay Freeman
Review
Kirkus Reviews
“[An] entertaining history…. Novices will receive a painless introduction, but educated readers should not pass up the highly opinionated prologue and epilogue and the author’s trademark acerbic commentary throughout…. Readers of all stripes…will find plenty to ponder.”
Ian Thomson, The Spectator
“Written in a precise, carefully modulated prose, World War Two is illuminating as well as often amusing.... This absorbing micro-history serves as a tonic to outsize histories, and is pleasingly digressive as well as wonderfully well written. Professor Stone is a one-off and we are fortunate to have him.”
Andrew Roberts, Standpoint
"Norman Stone has achieved the impossible; he has somehow written a comprehensive history of the Second World War in just under 200 pages, summarising the entire conflict while leaving out nothing of importance and bringing his lifetime of study of the subject to bear in a witty, incisive and immensely readable way…. Not everyone will agree with all the conclusions...but none will doubt that Norman Stone has proved yet again that he is one of the most original, witty and powerful British historians writing today."
Mail on Sunday (London)
“Stone’s book is an entertaining read, full of quirky detail.... For the well-informed, this will be a book to enjoy, then argue over.”
Daily Mail (London), Book of the Week
“Of all the books about World War II, this must be one of the most unexpected. Norman Stone, a master historian, has elected to tell the whole story in just 200 pages. Reading it is like being taken up in an all-seeing satellite to observe massive movements on the ground, or the woods without any trees to get in the way. It is illuminating, concentrating on what mattered most psychologically, ignoring confusing detail.”
Richard J. Evans, New Statesman
“[Norman Stone] has a real gift for saying a lot in a small space and many sections of this book are masterpieces of compression.”
The Telegraph (London)
“[Stone’s] history is a gripping introduction to one of the most tragic conflicts ever seen.”
Sunday Express (London)
“Love or loathe him, Stone can pull off tricks beyond the reach of most of his detractors. Take his World War II: A Short History; do we really need yet another mini survey of the 1939-45 conflict? Of course not. Except if it is written by Norman Stone. Pithy, opinionated, preposterously readable, an afternoon on the sofa should see you through from cover to cover and Stone’s book fires off illuminating facts as a Catherine wheel showers sparks.... [An] excellent, engaged and engaging primer, which contains everything and misses nothing in its brief span.”
Daily Telegraph (London)
“Stone always avoids the obvious, and his talent for seeing unexpected routes of cause and effect define his brilliant histories, of which his latest, World War Two: A Short History, is the fifth. Such lines of inquiry not only revivify the subjects they cover, they throw up all sorts of interesting nuggets.... Stone tells the story of the war succinctly and fluently, looking at areas often ignored in English histories.”
San Antonio Express-News
“An amazingly concise but seam-busting account of a war that defined America’s greatest generation, [World War Two] will fascinate the novice historian and satisfy the WWII scholar. Stone...solidifies his reputation as a British academic, author and celebrated chronicler of military history with this succinct work.... Stone masterfully dissects his subject and puts it back together in a concise and straightforward approach that will give readers a firm foundation.”
Roanoke Times
“Only a person with extensive knowledge can tell such a complex story in so few pages and still have it be comprehensive. This is an ideal book for someone who seeks to understand the nature of World War II. It is also appropriate reading for someone who has studied the war in fragments...and wants to be reminded of the grand scale of this massive conflagration that defined the 20th century.”
Michigan War Studies Review
“Stone’s primer on World War II is a worthy successor to its pithy and insightful predecessor on the First World War, published in 2009. The chief strengths of this latest volume are Stone’s ability to connect the two world wars and his mastery of the history of the European theater.... Stone’s high-energy prose keeps his book from degenerating into a tepid summary of battle after battle, campaign after campaign.... Stone is always worth reading. Anyone who describes Churchill’s final prime ministership in 1951 as ‘a mixture of mothballs and alcohol’ knows how to entertain.... So, read him for his keen eye, penetrating prose, and willingness to snarl and provoke.”
About the Author
Norman Stone has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Bilkent, where he is now Director of the Turkish-Russian Center. Stone is the author of World War One, The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (winner of the Wolfson Prize), and Europe Transformed.
Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Brief & punchy, Stone's summary of WW2 is a fine achievement but not recommended as a `beginners' guide'
By The Guardian
Historian Norman Stone has set himself the challenging task of writing a condensed history of WW2 in just over 200 pages, and the result is an impressive if imperfect summary of that epic conflict covering all the essentials but necessarily skimping on the details.
In nine densely written chapters, the author attempts a roughly chronological narrative of the global conflict emphasising the far-reaching consequences of political and strategic decisions, i.e. Hitler's decision to implement Barbarossa specifically in June 1941, and the failure of the German High Command to make adequate logistical provision for a long war should strong Soviet resistance be encountered. The brevity of the narrative inevitably results in some jumping around and discussion of divergent campaigns as more closely connected than in reality they were, like `Pearl Harbor and North Africa' which are treated together as a consequence of decisions made following US entry into the war.
Where the author succeeds brilliantly is in his succinct and intelligent summary of the causes of the war, the end-of-the-age-of-empires zeitgeist underpinning the popular mood and a retrospective overview, i.e.
"Poland was the martyr of the Second World War, as Great Britain was the hero, and the United States the victor" (p28)
Appropriate importance is given over to the epic conflict between Germany & the USSR, with emphasis on oft-neglected factors such as the importance of partisan activity, and the serious impact on logistical supply to the German forces in Russia of the failure to convert the Russian railway gauge to take German trains. Stone further reminds us that it was specifically the decision by Mussolini to enter the war and build his North African Empire that led to (what the author considers to be) ultimately wasteful diversion of allied resources into the Mediterranean campaign. He also remains un-persuaded by Albert Speer's claim that the allied strategic bombing campaign can be retrospectively justified because it drained off huge German military resources from the Eastern Front, and does not share the popular revisionist perspective of recent years that the British contribution to victory over the Axis powers was in any way peripheral, but argues it was of central & essential importance.
Where the book falls seriously short is in its detailed discussion of campaigns, especially in Russia, with references to specific geography & locations but with no maps to assist the reader to understand what was going on. A familiarity with distance and geography (and the names and locations of for example scores of Russian towns and cities) is assumed by the author, which most non-Russian readers frankly will not have. Some good maps to help explain these passages would have been of invaluable assistance.
Also it needs to be said that the book will probably not work well as an introduction to the subject for the young and uninformed reader, as the narrative assumes in places a fairly deep level of historical knowledge of the period. It's more an academic essay, an opinionated argument for the consideration of the serious student of the subject, than a beginners' guide. Stone's writing style however is punchy, humorous, literate & succinct, qualities which make for an absorbing and entertaining read and which definitely raise this book above the mundane.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A Worthy Effort
By Brett H
Writing a commentary on the Second World War in barely two hundred pages, if you exclude maps and index, is really quite a tall order. This is especially so since there is consideration of the causes of the war, with its roots in the way Germany were treated after 1918, and the aftermath of WWII, particularly the economic and political consequences. Given these limitations, this book does a very reasonable job under difficult circumstances.
Inevitably with so many countries involved and so many theatres of war, what we have here is just the bare bones of what occurred. Many of the battles would, and indeed have merited many books dedicated to them. Hence we have, for example, the iconic Battle of Britain which most people in the UK believe was a turning point in the war, covered in just about a page and a half and that is largely a mix of statistics on losses and dates.
I was reasonably aware of the main operations and battlefields, but where this book is really useful is in putting it all together so that the reader is able to appreciate the sequence of events and their relevance to the eventual outcome is clearer. Personally I was surprised to find that mistakes by the various commanders in chief were actually so pivotal to the outcome, how some of what I had thought were the major battles were largely irrelevant, and the fact that the degree to which the economy of each side was able to adapt to wartime conditions was so critical.
On the flip side some of the text is very dense and, like the German army, we do get very bogged down in Russia. Here the author does not help very much in his presentation with huge paragraphs which, on occasion, run to two pages or more. As far as consuming the information in easy, bite sized chunks, this really does not assist the reader very much. However, despite that, this is a very worthy effort and one which I personally found fascinating and learned a lot from.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
An informative read
By Wzl
I am enjoying the book but i am battling with the author's style of writing. Sentences can be rather lengthy, curiously punctuated and/or split in a manner that often requires a second look. Without having read other short histories of WWII (or a detailed history of WWII) I cannot really comment on whether the content is especially good or accurate. However, there is still plenty of information in the book which has improved my understanding of WWII.
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