Synopses & Reviews
In 1914, a new kind of war came about, bringing with it a new kind of world. World War One began on horseback, with generals employing bayonet charges to gain ground, and ended with attacks resembling the Nazi blitzkriegs. The scale of devastation was unlike anything the world had seen before: Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, and four empires were destroyed. Even the victors' empires were fatally damaged.
An overwhelming disaster from which the world is still recovering, World War One can seem baffling in its complexity. But now Norman Stone, one of world's greatest military historians, has composed a dazzlingly lucid and succinct history of the conflict. Stone has distilled a lifetime of teaching, arguing, and thinking into this brisk and opinionated account of the fundamental tragedy of the twentieth century.
Review
Military Review“Stone’s book is a good overview of the war and worth reading.”
Review
Military Review “Stone’s book is a good overview of the war and worth reading.”
H-Net Reviews“The narrative has a rich sense of immediacy, accentuated with intimate details, as if Stone knew each figure personally.… Throw in a handful of references to poems, films, and novels both contemporary and modern, as Stone does, add dashes of jaunty, scornful judgments, and the result is indeed a literary tour de force. The phrase ‘cannot put it down’ does indeed come to mind.”
Synopsis
Norman Stone, author of 'Europe Transformed' and the Wolfson Prize-winning 'The Eastern Front, 1914-1917', presents a short history of the First World War, from the build-up to war to its aftermath.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
An eminent historian distills the War to End All Wars into a concise and brilliant single volume
Synopsis
The First World War was the overwhelming disaster from which everything else in the twentieth century stemmed. Fourteen million combatants died, four empires were destroyed, and even the victors empires were fatally damaged. World War I took humanity from the nineteenth century forcibly into the twentiethand then, at Versailles, cast Europe on the path to World War II as well.
In World War One, Norman Stone, one of the worlds greatest historians, has achieved the almost impossible task of writing a terse and witty short history of the war. A captivating, brisk narrative, World War One is Stones masterful effort to make sense of one of the twentieth centurys pivotal conflicts.
About the Author
Norman Stone is the author of World War One, The Eastern Front 1914-1917 (winner of the Wolfson Prize), and Europe Transformed. He has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Bilkent, where he is now Director of the Turkish-Russian Center. He lives in Oxford and Istanbul.