'The best single-volume history of the war ever written' DOMINIC SANDBOOK, SUNDAY TIMES

‘A masterly account of that epic conflict’ ROBERT HARRIS

The anniversary edition of multi-million copy bestselling author Max Hastings’s seminal one-volume history of World War Two, published for the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.

This is a study of the greatest and most terrible event in history, which shows its impact upon hundreds of millions of people around the world – soldiers, sailors and airmen; British housewives and Indian peasants; SS killers and the citizens of Leningrad; Japanese suicide pilots and American carrier crews. This is the ‘everyman’s story'. It is an attempt to answer the question: ‘What was the Second World War like?'

'This global history of the Second World War is the best there is' NIGEL JONES, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘No other general history of the war amalgamates so successfully the gut-wrenching personal details and the essential strategic arguments. Hastings has triumphed’ HEW STRACHAN, THE TIMES

‘No one could be better qualified than Max Hastings to write a single-volume history that covers every aspect of the Second World War… You will love this splendid book’ ANDREW ROBERTS, FINANCIAL TIMES