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World War One

A Short History

Contributors

By Norman Stone

Formats and Prices

Price

$19.99

Price

$25.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD
  2. ebook $15.99 $20.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around April 27, 2010. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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.

  • 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.”

On Sale
Apr 27, 2010
Page Count
240 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465019182

Norman Stone

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.

Learn more about this author