'Simply the ultimate Second World War history'- SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, DAILY TELEGRAPH

A CONFLICT LIKE NO OTHER, it has come to define the very idea of war itself. Great power rivalry prepared the ground, yet so did bitter ethnic disputes following the collapse of four empires, as did the ideological clash between Fascism and Communism. More than any other, the Second World War was dominated, in the age of totalitarianism, by leaders who determined the course of events in a way we have not seen since then - and thought we would never see again.

Using the most up-to-date scholarship and research, Antony Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific and from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert. Despite the titanic scale of his canvas, he never loses sight of the fates of the ordinary men and women whose lives were scattered by inexorable forces.

Revised and with a new foreword to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, this is the unrivalled single-volume history of the greatest conflict the world has ever known, by our foremost historian of war.

"His singular ability to make huge historical events accessible to a general audience recalls the golden age of British narrative history, whose giants include Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle" - INDEPENDENT

"Beevor can be credited with single-handedly transforming the reputation of military history" - GUARDIAN

"The myriad pieces of this intricate kaleidoscope are pieced together with exemplary skill ... This is a splendid book, erudite, with an admirable clarity of thought and expression" - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

"His accounts of the key moments in the Second World War have a sense of colour, drama and immediacy that few narrative historians can match" - SUNDAY TIMES

"You feel yourself being carried along on the narrative flow, channelled this way and that through the pools and rapids by Beevor's expert helmanship" - STANDPOINT

"Brocaded with details of the great campaigns and thoughtful explanations of Hitler's murderous belligerence, The Second World War is an absorbing, unsparingly lucid work of military history" - THE SPECTATOR

"Beevor's book is a pleasure to read and an example of intelligent, lively historical writing at its best" - FINANCIAL TIMES