Why the Allies Won

by R. J. Overy (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $4.20

  Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, this is more than just a history of the war - though it can be read as that too. Like John Keegan's HISTORY OF WARFARE, it goes behind the main events to explain the deeper causes of the war. What is really original is its iconoclastic view of the causes of Western victory. Overy explains the cultural, technical, military and psychological reasons for western dominance of the postwar world, while showing how close-run the race really was. It could have gone the other way.

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $5.12

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $17.06

  The Allied victory in 1945 - though comprehensive - was far from inevitable. By 1942 almost the entire resources of continental Europe were in German hands and Japan had wiped out the western colonial presence in Asia. Democracy appeared to have had its day. In this remarkable study, Richard Overy provides a reinterpretation of the war through an account of the decisive military campaigns that created the astonishing revival in Allied fortunes. He also explores the deeper factors that determined success and failure: industrial stength, fighting ability, the skills of leaders and the moral contrasts between the two sides. Today the modern world is once more in the throes of painful transformation. It is essential to establish why and how the last great war was won. Richard Overy casts a brilliant light on the most important turning-point of the modern age.