A consise account of the Second World War in about 500 pages. I am not sure that I like the writing style though

I think there are some events in human history that everyone who wants to be able to call themselves a worldly needs to know about. The second world war may be on the top of that list, as understanding geopolitics today still hinges on what happened here.

John Keegan's book does not fluff around. it is unapologetically a strategy and tactics book of the second world war, which may or may not be to your liking. I think that as a entry point to more reading it is a great start, because it lets you know all the things that happened. From that point you can then think of where you want to go to learn more; for example I am now interested to read about early 20th century Germany and why they were grumpy about the Treaty of Versailles, What happened in world war one? How was the majority of mainland Europe so unprepared for invasion?

Civilians are statistics in this book (x were killed). This is a feature not a bug. Now I have questions like what was it like to be a German or Japanese citizen during the periods of intense bombing? what was life like under German occupation? How evil and horrible were the SS?

He didn't touch on concentration camps much apart from statistics (the book was already 600+ pages) but now I am thinking.. what was it like to be a guard? what was it like to be a POW?

Don't get me started on Stalinist Russia! the gulag archipelago is sitting menacingly on my bookshelf.

And the majority of Japans troops were hanging out in china being absolutely horrible.. Rape of Nanking is also on the to read list.

In all. if you want to read just one book on the second world war, the Max Hastings one is probably the single volume. If you want a springboard to dive deep into twentieth century history, here you go. Walk up and dive in.

As a general history of WWII, this occupies a middle ground with its familiar, slightly anglocentric story. As a read, this is Keegan gold in its eloquence. It takes a teacher to simply write: "the question was, where ?"

Concise. VERY. Concise.
An entire world war - crammed into a book.

My 8th-grade daughter and I found Keegan's book to have a pretty dry, top-down perspective. It was valuable as a framework for understanding WWII, but we were glad to flesh out our studies with first-person perspectives in The Liberator by Alex Kershaw, In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke and Wolves at the Door by Judith Pearson.

One of the best single-volume histories of World War II and an excellent introductory textbook for readers new to the subject.

Excellent one-volume military history of World War II. The author is a well-known military historian who taught at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He acknowledges learning from colleagues who were veterans of the war, and from his students; I sense the voice of someone who had a lot of experience teaching this material.

A strong point of this book is its organization, first by time, then by place, then by topic. This makes such a vast topic much more accessible. The writing is clear and readable, and at its best moments (such as the account of the battle of Kursk on the Eastern front) it sparkles and thunders. There are several good maps, and evocative photographs. Within each section, there is a high-level discussion of the strategic issues, looking by turn at the perspective of each of the commanders – Hitler, Tojo, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt; and a focused look at a selected battle that illuminates the evolution of war-making and its machinery.

I struggled with the book’s perspective, not so much that it’s British (Keegan actually tries very hard to look from all sides of the conflict, and has some of his toughest critique for Britain’s strategic aerial bombing of German cities), but that it’s so much a military discussion, focused on strategy, military decision making, the evolution of war-making and its machinery, and battles that proved to be turning points. How can you write a book on World War II and say so little about the Holocaust? Keegan was not unaware of political and humanitarian issues; he discusses them tellingly, but not at great length or much detail here. So, highly recommended and I hope it isn’t the only book you read about this period.

Well written - allows the reader to move through history like it is a story and not a chore.

Same caliber as his history of World War 1.