Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Max Hastings has spent the past 35 years studying in depth the horrors of World War II (1939-1945). Among his bestselling volumes are Armageddon and Retribution. In Inferno the author gets personal. All of the major military campaigns are covered but the real strength of the book lies in the comments included in the text by participants in the war. We hear from Russian housewives, Werhmacht troops; American Marines; Japanese, Indian and Chinese persons. We feel as if we were there amid the horrors of the worst event in the history of humanity. Just consider the following horrible statistics: a. Every day from 1939-45 over 27,000 men, women and children died as a result of the war. b. Over 60 million persons lost their lives during the war due to battle, starvation, executions and disease. c.90% of the over 7 million German soldiers who died in the war did so in the fight against Stalin's Soviet Union empire. d. Japan and Germany were cruel dictatorships which treated their own people as cruelly as they did their enemies. The chief mistakes made by Hitler leading to his downfall were: a. The foolish attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. b. The failed plan to defeat England in a cross channel invasion which never transpired. c.The declaration of war against the United States. America had unlimited wealth and might to produce the weapons of war which led to victory over the Axis powers d. The holocaust killed over 6 million Jews and in addition 3 million Russians were murdered by the Nazi war machine. The slaves of the Nazis could have been better utiilized as workers for the Reich rather than being killed in senseless slaughter. Germany was defeated by a two front war with the western allies attacking from the West and the Soviet hordes charging into Germany from the east. The Japanese were ill equipped to beat the better armed Americans. They failed to conquer China. The book is 651 close typed pages which fascinate and shock. We Westerners have no idea how fortunate we are to live in demnocracies rather than in dictatorships ruled by such horrible monsters of evil as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Hirohito. Anything written by Max Hastings is worth reading. This book is a sine qua non for anyone wanting a good one volume account of the war. Man's inhumanity to man is manifest in these grim pages of a worlwide tragedy of unprecedented proportions. Dante's inferno pales in horror before the real life inferno ignited by the fires of totalitarianism and racial hatred. Inferno contains many maps which are included to aid understanding of the absorbing text. Hastings shows his research skills with an extensive bibliography. The author has mined little known sources to strengthen the narrative. Though the book is lengthy I found it to be engrossing. World War II was a horrible tragedy which has never been equalled for its cruelty and terror. May humankind never descend in such an abyss as transpired seventy years ago. Highly recommended for all World War II buffs and general readers seeking a good understanding of the war.