But as Lloyd Clark, a leading British military historian and academic, argues in Blitzkrieg, much of our understanding of this victory, and blitzkrieg itself, is based on myth.

The tactic was not really new, and far from being a forgone victory, Hitler's invasion was incredibly risky and could easily have failed had the Allies been even slightly less inept or the Germans less fortunate. And while speed and mechanization were essential, ninety percent of Germany's ground forces were still reliant on horses, bicycles, and their own feet for transportation. Their surprise victory proved the apex of their achievement; far from being undefeatable, Clark argues, the campaign revealed Germany's vulnerabilities, lessons not learned by Hitler as he began to plan for the invasion of the Soviet Union. A definitive history of the events of 1940, Blitzkrieg is Lloyd Clark at his best.