Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe

Robert Gellately · 720 pages

A bold new accounting of the great social and political upheavals that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945--from the Russian Revolution through the Second World War.In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914-1991

Eric Hobsbawm · 627 pages

In this masterful and highly accessible study of our times, one of the world's leading historians sheds exciting new light on our understanding of the twentieth century, with incisive assessments of events that have marked this turbulent period. Eric Hobsbawm, whose own life spans this century, deftly examines from both personal and scholarly perspectives such events as the great economic depre

Churchill: A Biography

Roy Jenkins · 1,020 pages

"Winston Churchill is an icon of modern history, but even though he was at the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years, he might be remembered only as a minor player in the drama of British government had it not been for World War II. In this magisterial book, Roy Jenkins's command of the political history of Britain and his own high-level government experience combine in a narr

To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949

Ian Kershaw · 592 pages

"The Penguin History of Europe series reaches the twentieth century with ... Ian Kershaw's long-anticipated analysis of the pivotal years of World War I and World War II. The European catastrophe, the long continuous period from 1914 to 1949, was unprecedented in human history-- an extraordinarily dramatic, often traumatic, and endlessly fascinating period of upheaval and transformation. This new

Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

Mark Mazower · 491 pages

Dark Continent is a searching history of Europe's most brutal century. Stripping away the comforting myths and illusions that we have grown up with since the Second World War, Mark Mazower presents an unflinching account of a continent locked in a finely balanced struggle between tolerance and racial extermination, imperial ambition and national self-determination, liberty and the tyrannies of Rig

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Niall Ferguson · 816 pages

Historian Fergusson provides a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence, and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing. From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the Cold War, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of hu

The World of Yesterday

Stefan Zweig · 474 pages

"Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's final work, posted to his publisher the day before his tragic death, brings the destruction of a war-torn Europe vividly to life. Written as both a recollection of the past, and as a warning for future generations, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of literary Vienna; its seeming permanence, its promise, and its devastating fall. A truthful and passionat

The Generals: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, and the Winning of World War II

Winston Groom · 512 pages

Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall. These three remarkable men-of-arms who rose from the gruesome hell of the First World War to become the finest generals of their generation during World War II redefined America's ideas of military leadership and brought forth a new generation of American soldier. Against the backdrop

The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5

Christopher M. Andrew · 1,032 pages

This book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in 20th-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counter-espionage and counter-terrorism.

The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War

William Manchester · 1,022 pages

Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, from the Red Baron to the F-16

Dan Hampton · 623 pages

"The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot and retired USAF F-16 legend Dan Hampton offers the first comprehensive popular history of combat aviation--a unique, entertaining, and action-packed look at the aces of the air and their machines, from the Red Baron and his triplane in World War I to today's technologically expert flying warriors in supersonic jets."--

The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug

Thomas Hager · 340 pages

The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. It was sulfa, the first synthetic antibiotic. Science writer Hager chronicles the history of the drug that shaped modern medicine. Sulfa saved millions of lives--among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.--but even more, it

Churchill: A Life

Martin Gilbert · 364 pages

The definitive biography of Winston Churchill.This edition of the highly acclaimed one-volume CHURCHILL: A LIFE, is the story of adventure. It follows Winston Churchill from his earliest days to his moments of triumph. Here, the drama and excitement of his story are ever-present, as are his tremendous qualities in peace and war, not least as an orator and as a man of vision. Martin Gilbert gives u

Nicholas and Alexandra

Robert K. Massie · 613 pages

"A LARGER THAN LIFE DRAMA, SO BIZARRE, SO HEART-RENDING AND, ABOVE ALL, SO APOCALYPTIC, THAT NO NOVELIST WOULD HAVE DARED INVENT IT" —Saturday Review Syndicate The story of the Tsar, his Empress, and the realm they lost. The story of a man, a woman, and the love they shared—and of the obscene monk, Rasputin, who corrupted and destroyed them. "A WONDERFULLY RICH TAPESTRY, the colors fresh and

Europe

Norman Davies · 1,392 pages

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Jennet Conant · 403 pages

When Roald Dahl, a dashing young ex-RAF pilot, took up his post at the British Embassy in Washington, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and considerable charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. Dahl would soon be caught up in a web of deception masterminded by Intrepid, Churchill's legendary spy chief. In an account better suited to a work of s

The Third Reich

Michael Burleigh · 965 pages

"The Third Reich: A New History restores a broader perspective and intellectual unity to the many subjects that have become academic sub-specialities. It offers a radical re-examination of the Third Reich from its incubation in the hopelessness which followed the German defeat in 1918 to the Nazi regime's final destructive spiral and the aftershocks of de-Nazification."--BOOK JACKET.

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning

Timothy Snyder · 480 pages

"It comforts us to believe that the Holocaust was a unique event. But as Timothy Snyder shows, we have missed basic lessons of the history of the Holocaust, and some of our beliefs are frighteningly close to the ecological panic that Hitler expressed in the 1920s. As ideological and environmental challenges to the world order mount, our societies might be more vulnerable than we would like to thin

The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914

Margaret MacMillan · 761 pages

From the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I. The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a go

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

Lynne Olson · 570 pages

Traces the crisis period leading up to America's entry into World War II, describing the nation's polarized interventionist and isolationist factions as represented by the government, in the press, and on the streets.

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45

Milton Sanford Mayer · 346 pages

Interviews with ten former Nazis comprise the core of this penetrating study of the psychological causes of Nazism and their implications for modern Germany.

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

John Maynard Keynes

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

David M. Kennedy · 936 pages

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom from Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. David M. Kennedy demonstrates that the economic crisis of the 1930s was more than a reaction to the excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century

The Collapse of the Third Republic

William L. Shirer · 1,082 pages

After setting the stage with a look at the founding of the Republic in 1871, describes the political, social, and religious divisions in the country, the "Maginot Line complex" growing out of military trust in a defensive war, and the deleterious effect of the tragedy of World War I.