Max Hastings

Following on from Volume I (9441), Max Hastings' study of the greatest and most terrible event in history continues in the second part of his epic book. There are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it, in an 'everyman's story'.

A narrative history of the Second World War from one of our finest historians. A book which depicts what the war was like to live through - whether you were a starving child in Leningrad, a soldier in North Africa, or a civilian in Dresden. Continued in Volume II (9442)

Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Möhne and Eder dams in Germany by the RAF’s 617 Squadron, was an epic that has passed into Britain’s legend. Max Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis’ bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams at the cost of devastating losses. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents, in one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.

The author, failed soldier turned journalist, reported on most major conflicts from Northern Ireland in 1969, through Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Middle East to the Falkland's War of 1982. Here the self-confessed coward describes his experiences.

Max Hastings examines the espionage and intelligence machines of all sides in World War II and the impact of spies, code breakers and partisan operations on events. With accounts from British, American, German, Russian and Japanese sources he tells the story of a secret war waged unceasingly by men and women whose actions profoundly influenced the outcome.