I have been meaning to read a single overview of WWII and when I saw that Max Hastings had published a single volume, Inferno: The World At War, 1939-1945, I figured that this was the one for me since i had so thoroughly enjoyed his previous book on the Pacific War in 1944-45, Nemesis. And it did not disappoint. In the introduction Hastings explicitly states that he was trying to show the large scale of human misery brought on by WWII and does this admirably by giving the readers glimpses of the misery suffered by the combatants and the civilians through liberal use of primary sources like diaries, and letters. The final chapter also does an excellent job of summing up the war and the misery it wrought. He tallies the number of civilian and military deaths. Of course Russia and China lead the way, but in terms of percentages of deaths there were significant losses to smaller populations like the Finns, Yugoslavians, Polish, and New Zealanders.
I was able to fill in some gaps about Nazi aggression and appeasement early in the war in France and Poland, as well as the campaigns that I was not well-informed about: Africa, Italy, Greece, the battles at sea to stop commerce in the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Eastern front in particular. It seems that it was really a war between Russia and Germany as they had the most causalities and decided the balance in Europe and there fore encountered the most misery. Hastings also identifies some of the deciding factors in the war, for example, the fact that the Axis overlooked or misjudged the capabilities of the Allies and the superb air support of the Allies among these. I also found his reports about incompetent officers, poor military decisions, mass desertions, rapes and other atrocities among all forces-allies included eye opening. He also identifies who he thought were the top commanders, people like Lucian Truscott of the 5th Army in Italy and Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz among others. Hasting doesn't spare his opinions on which campaigns were inconsequential in retrospect--in particular calling out MacArthur in the Philippines and admitting British Bill Slim's victories in Burma and Malay were more morale inducing than decisive. I also like how he addresses the critics of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan by showing how unwilling they were (like the Nazis) to surrender once it was assured that there could be no victory, their willingness to fight on for months if not years, and the thousands of civilians under their rule that died daily without mentioning the misery of the POWs in their care. All in all, another great historical narrative with great use of primary and secondary sources.
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