No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945

Davies, Norman

ISBN 10: 1400104688 ISBN 13: 9781400104680

Publisher: Tantor Audio, 2007

Synopsis

If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.

In detailing the clash of political philosophies that drove the war's savage engine, Davies also examines how factors as diverse as technology, economics, and morale played dynamic roles in shaping battles, along with the unsung yet vital help of Poland, Greece, and the Ukraine (which suffered the highest number of casualties). And while the Allies resorted to bombing enemy civilians to sow terror, the most damning condemnation is saved for the Soviet Union, whose glossed-over war crimes against British soldiers and its own people prove that Communism and Nazism were two sides of the same brutal coin.

No Simple Victory is an unparalleled work that will fascinate not only history buffs but anyone who is interested in discovering the reality behind what Davies refers to as "the frozen perspective of the winners' history."

About this title

About the Author

Norman Davies is a professor emeritus of the University of London and a fellow of Wolfson College in Oxford. He is the author of several books on Polish and European history, including God's Playground, The Isles, and White Eagle, Red Star.

From AudioFile

NO SIMPLE VICTORY is no simple book. Rather than chronicle WWII from beginning to end, the author explores hundreds of its skirmishes and principal characters in no seeming order. He throws out the names of battles, generals, and politicians without assignation, as though we know them all from a previous life. With an aristocratic British accent, Simon Vance does his best to turn a dry and confusing narrative into a pleasant experience. He performs well with French and Russian names but occasionally loses the last word of a sentence. After hearing Vance adopt the authors attitude and read his flight of opinions, the listener might mistake the narrator for Davies himself. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Tantor Audio
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1400104688
• ISBN 13: 9781400104680
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English