Absolute War Soviet Russia in the Second World War

There have been many individual accounts of particular moments in the vicious war between the Nazi regime and the Soviet behemoth, but none which sets out to tell the full and dreadful story of that absolute war: absolute because both sides aimed to 'exterminate the opponent, to destroy his political existence' and total because it was fought by all elements of society, not simply the armed forces, but civilians - men, women, children - too. Chris Bellamy, Professor of Military Science at Cranfield University, is one of the world's leading experts on this subject and has been working on this book for almost a decade. It benefits from his remarkable insight into strategic issues as well as exhaustive research in hitherto unopened Russian archives. It is the definitive study of what the Soviets called - and what their fifteen successor states still call - the Great Patriotic War.

Chris Bellamy is Professor of Military Science and Doctrine and Director of the Security Studies Institute at Cranfield University. Born in 1955, he was educated at the Universities of Oxford, London, Westminster, and Edinburgh. In 1990 he was appointed Defence Correspondent of The Independent, and served in that capacity for more than seven years, reporting from Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, from Bosnia between 1992 and 1997, and from Chechnya in 1995. He lives in London.