I really don't know why I keep reading books about the war on the Eastern Front. It is grim reading of atrocities, death and human suffering of an incomprehensible magnitude. But still the topic is fascinating, and I read books like this with horrified fascination. Maybe in the hope to get an answer to my question: Why? Why?!
Mr. Jones' book is very well written and easy to read. ( )

Decent retelling of the 1941-1942 Moscow Campaign from original sources. However its defects are several. It repeats over and over incidents designed to show the senseless brutality of both sides, especially the Nazis. The incidents blend together and extreme repetition adds little to the story. The book also desperately needs more maps. For those who are not seasoned students of the campaign having town names pop up serves to confuse, the more so as the author bounces back and forth between miles and kilometers. The book also needs a generalized overview for each chapter of the strategic situation and especially the logistical realities. So while this can be a good addition to an East Front library it should not be your first or even your second book on this campaign. ( )

Another book on the Battle for Moscow in 1941 you cry? No, not just another book on Moscow. Some focus on the political background, some on the grand strategic picture. Jones takes you to where the battle was won and lost: at the front. Indeed, this is a book not about the city (as many accounts tend to be) but the fighting outside it.

Making use of letters, diaries and first-hand accounts of participants, plus numerous interviews with the dwindling band of veterans, the author paints a very vivid - at times gory - account of the German defeat in front of the Soviet capital, focusing on October 1941-spring 1942: the last spurt of the Wehrmacht's advance and the Russian counter-stroke. As well as some excellent material from soldiers, Jones also shows the effects of the fighting on the Russian civilian population whose towns and villages were fought over during the winter. He leaves the reader in no doubt about the scale of the German defeat before Moscow or about how horrific fighting in such climatic conditions were for both sides.

An excellent addition to the narrative history of WW2 and an excellent companion volume to Robert Kershaw's War Without Garlands. ( )