In August 1944, Warsaw presented the last major obstacle to the Red Army's triumphant march from Moscow to Berlin. When the Wehrmacht was pushed back to the Vistula River, the Polish Resistance poured forty thousand fighters into the streets to drive out the hated Germans. But Stalin halted the Russian offensive, allowing the Wehrmacht to regroup and destroy the city. For sixty-three days Soviet troops and other Allied forces watched from the sidelines as tens of thousands of Poles were slaughtered and Warsaw was reduced to rubble.

Like Antony Beevor's bestselling The Fall of Berlin, Rising '44 is a brilliant narrative of one of the most dramatic episodes in twentieth-century history.

"The Warsaw rising of 1944 — not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 — pitted Polish insurgents of the Home Army against the Germans in a two-month battle that left the city in ruins. Almost as bitter are the historiographical controversies over the failure of the Allies, particularly the Soviets, whose army was idling nearby, to rescue the city. Davies (Europe: A History) offers an enthralling, impressionistic account of the uprising, highlighted by vivid reminiscences from Polish and German participants, but the bulk of this sprawling book is concerned with the political background and aftermath. Delving into the diplomatic wranglings between the exiled Polish government in London, the Western Allies and Stalin, Davies sides with the anti-Communist interpretation of the episode as the opening chapter in the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. He denounces Stalin for deliberately allowing the non-Communist Home Army to be crushed, the Western Allies for acquiescing and British intellectuals for toeing the Communist line on Poland, and includes a pointed litany of Stalinist crimes in post-war Poland. Davis is correspondingly enthusiastic about the insurgents. He exonerates them of charges of anti-Semitism, reprints poems and songs about them and, working from iffy figures on German casualties, extols their combat prowess. Davis is persuasive on many points, and his somewhat romantic defense of the rising — which failed in its objectives and triggered the German massacre of tens of thousands of civilians — amply conveys its heroism, but may not convince readers of its wisdom. Photos." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Not to be confused with the Ghetto Uprising of the year before, the Warsaw Rising of 1944 saw the Polish Resistance attempt to throw out the German occupiers only to be mercilessly crushed while the Soviet Army stood passively by. Before treating the events of the rising itself, Davies (emeritus, London U., UK) narrates the road leading up to the Rising from the separate perspectives of the Allies, the German occupiers, the Soviet Red Army, and the Polish Resistance, dealing with each in turn. He also explores the aftermath of the Rising up to the present time.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

[Davies'] knowledge and his passion are displayed in this notable book. His research among Polish and Soviet sources is exhaustive... (Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph (London)) Praise for Norman Davies's Europe: A History:

"Davies reveals a comprehensive design, tremendous narrative power, a remarkable gift for compression, and a shrewd sense of overall balance." (The New York Review of Books)