Allan R. Millett

This is a full historical review of what we call world War II. The political, economic, human and military aspects are described in enough detail to tie them together. Certainly each area could have volumes written about them and still not have exhausted all the information available. This volume does not exhaustively review every subject, but presents enough of each concept to give the reader an understanding of the complexities of the events. The military events are covered in the greatest show more detail with the underlying economic and political causes/results of the military events described.

This is a readable and interesting history of a great time in history which still impacts our lives today. Because of the wealth of detail this is not a "fast read" - rather it took time to put all the information together. I did find it enjoyable and informative to understand the roles played by all involved. I was surprised about some assessments of leaders I had always considered heroes. The one difficult problem I had was with the paucity of maps and when they were present, the narrative described events at places not on the map. Made for tough going trying place events in places. A book worth reading to give an overall look at WWII. I give this one 4 stars. show less

I didn't expect such a deep and expansive tome on military history to be as engaging as it was. Some of the inter-war chapters got a bit dry at times—after awhile the political infighting starts to blend together. But the treatment of the wars was interesting and even engrossing.

Highly recommend.

This book is for those who really crave American Military History. There is not a lot of detail about individual battles or wars but the policy before during and after military engagements from prior to the Revolutionary War up to the first Iraq war in 1991.

It gives the reasons of how and why our military became the power it is today. This book goes behind the scenes of all the decision makers and the mood of the country during each period.

Somewhat dated now since the essays were written in the early 1980s, this book remains a valuable high level view of the seven main powers in WWII.