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The Second World Wars
- How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
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The Second World Wars
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Summary
A definitive account of World War II by America's preeminent military historian.
World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Never before had a war been fought on so many diverse landscapes and in so many different ways, from rocket attacks in London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya.
The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.
An authoritative new history of astonishing breadth, The Second World Wars, offers a stunning reinterpretation of history's deadliest conflict.
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What listeners say about The Second World Wars
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alan D Young
- 09-04-19
A methodological breakdown of the conflict
A well narrated breakdown of WW2, dividing the conflicts into theatres (air, sea, land) and geographies (East/West Europe, N Africa, Pacific) with a strategic lens, using empirical data and contemporary commentary on topics such as the effectiveness of weapons from machine guns to airplanes, logistical support, technological innovation, leadership, and ideologies to make judgements on how the war proceeded and concluded as it did. Victor Davis Hanson also attempts to answer questions on what was inevitable and what wasn’t as well as philosophical questions what exactly was won and lost. At no point did a I find listening to this book dry, as can be found with other non-fiction topics.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Virginia Slim
- 24-04-20
Comprehensive and analytic
This book combines global breadth and depth of historical comparisons into an analytic perspective that keeps both the human and the material dimensions of the War continuously in view. I now feel the need to read it as well as to listen. My only critism of the reading is that brief pauses between paragraphs would have made for easier listening. Otherwise, excellent.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jerome Bentley
- 25-02-21
A great war history
Professor Hanson has produced an engossing world war history, with very detailed information and thoroughly researched personal accounts.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anders
- 18-06-23
Sleep inducing
Honestly one of the most uninteresting WW2 books I've gone through. It lacks any explanatory depth as to why events were happening, instead it's just a constant stream of numbers. The author loves to talk about how this and that general was 'incompetent' and 'ignorant' whenever something didn't go according to plan. Like he says the Japanese were ignorant of the possibility of carriers not being docked at pearl harbor. Obviously the attack was a high risk move and didn't pay off quite as they hoped, that is a part of gambling, plans often don't work out exactly as expected. So the author appears very full of himself.
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