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The Second World War
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 39 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of World War II. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the 20th century, The Second World War.
In this searing narrative, which takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14th, 1945, and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach - one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience.
Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history. It confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.
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This is the strange and fascinating life of Erwin Rommel, from his days as a youth in Imperial Germany - when he had a child out of wedlock with an early girlfriend - through his lauded military exploits during World War I to his death by suicide during World War II, after he attempted a failed coup against Hitler. Rommel was a man of contradictions: a soldier who wrote a best-selling book about World War I, a commander who went from commanding Hitler's bodyguard to trying to kill him, and a serious military mind who was known for participating in practical jokes.
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Amazing Detail, Amazing Story!
- By Al888 on 05-19-19
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The Korean War
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Max Hastings, preeminent military historian, takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950.
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Inspiring and Hard Hitting
- By David Ewing on 08-06-07
By: Max Hastings
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Shanghai 1937
- Stalingrad on the Yangtze
- By: Peter Harmsen
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.
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The Curtain to World War Two
- By Michael on 03-01-16
By: Peter Harmsen
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The Battle of the Tanks
- Kursk, 1943
- By: Lloyd Clark
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On July 5, 1943, the greatest land battle in history began when Nazi and Red Army forces clashed near the town of Kursk, on the western border of the Soviet Union. Code named Operation Citadel, the German offensive would cut through the bulge in the eastern front that had been created following Germany's retreat at the battle of Stalingrad. But the Soviets, well informed about Germany's plans through their network of spies, had months to prepare.
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Good enough
- By Val Shebeko on 05-28-15
By: Lloyd Clark
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Dunkirk
- The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler
- By: Norman Gelb
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1940, the last patch of resistance to the Nazi war machine was a little strip of beach whose name would soon be famous around the world: Dunkirk. Over 300,000 Allied soldiers crowded into the little harbor. If Hitler destroyed them, Britain would be left defenseless, and the war would almost be over. The British had other ideas. Over the next ten days, the people of Britain launched an unprecedented rescue effort. Countless little ships steamed forth from every port in England to bring the boys back home.
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The Real Dunkirk Story: Not the Movie Version
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 08-09-17
By: Norman Gelb
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The Fall of the Ottomans
- The Great War in the Middle East
- By: Eugene Rogan
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.
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Great Book About A Little Known Part of WWI
- By Nostromo on 06-08-15
By: Eugene Rogan
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Hubris
- The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than 50 years, and in this wise and masterly work he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to reveal the one trait that links them all: hubris.
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I Never Heard W ll Explained this Way!
- By John on 09-01-16
By: Alistair Horne
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Blitzkrieg
- Myth, Reality, and Hitler's Lightning War: France 1940
- By: Lloyd Clark
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1940, the Germans launched a military offensive in France and the Low Countries that married superb intelligence, the latest military thinking, and new technology. It was a stunning victory, altering the balance of power in Europe in one stroke, and convincing the entire world that the Nazi war machine was unstoppable. But as Lloyd Clark, a leading British military historian and academic, argues, much of our understanding of this victory, and blitzkrieg itself, is based on myth.
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Very good and detailed about the Fall of France
- By Arthur on 03-15-17
By: Lloyd Clark
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Rommel
- Leadership Lessons from the Desert Fox
- By: Charles Messenger
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This exciting series opens with “the Desert Fox”, the most famous German field marshal in World War II, Erwin Rommel. A hero of the people of the Third Reich and widely respected by his opponents, Rommel proved himself highly adept at blitzkrieg warfare. He displayed an outstanding ability to seize the initiative and retain it, and here, Charles Messenger draws on the skills behind this ability for the benefit of modern-day leaders.
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Not particularly new, insightful, or good.
- By William Simkiss on 08-17-21
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World War Two
- A Short History
- By: Norman Stone
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous. In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One.
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Great primer before taking on the big tomes.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-18
By: Norman Stone
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On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the legendary American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the British 1st Airborne Division. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept, but could it have ever worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch.
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Beevor excellent as always
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A commendable book
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Crete 1941
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The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the 20th century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times - modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society - and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment.
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Best Military History of First World War
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The Great War
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World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.
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Horrible Listen
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The German War
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As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years? In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials - personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence - to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people to vivid life.
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Great read for history buffs
- By marykk on 05-12-16
What listeners say about The Second World War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jared
- 02-21-15
Best WWII history book I've ever read
Voice actor takes a little to get used to, but once you do it's a great audio book.
If you want to learn about wwii you should read Antony Beevor. I put this book up there with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
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21 people found this helpful
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- Roger S. Borovoy
- 12-05-12
Maximally enjoyable for WWII buffs end-to-end
What did you love best about The Second World War?
A wonderfully written and thorough history of the War, read magnificently. Sean Barrett not only speaks melodious and extremely clear "English English," but is a master of other European languages as well. When he speaks a German, French or Russian name, he does it in German, French or Russian - adding much to the enjoyment of the listener.The book itself is a continuum of small stories which, in their aggregate, give a total picture of the horrors or WWII. Mr. Beevor calls it like it is - no favoritism whatsover, whether to Ike, Monty, De Gaulle, Stalin, Churchill or Roosevelt. I have read (or listened to) other WWII histories, but none was as exceptional as this one. I give much credit to the reader for holding my attention (even while driving).
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Second World War?
Beevor's description of the Holocaust, although necessarily short, gave one of the best pictures I've read. His blow-by-blow tales of each of the major WWII battles makes you feel like you were there.
What does Sean Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
He brings the book to life!
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
The film would last days!
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10 people found this helpful
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- John
- 09-25-20
Magnificent, Engaging, But Not Definitive
In spite of the publisher’s extravagant claim, this book falls short of “definitive”. And that’s not a slam; given the sheer magnitude of the subject, no single book could be definitive. However, having read much on the far-flung theaters of the war, this superb narrative, punctuated by clear-eyed opinions and assessments, helped me stitch together all those details into one coherent picture.
The sketch of the prelude to war seems somewhat perfunctory, but as the conflict widens Beevor hits his stride. He has a lot of ground to cover, so detailed battlefield maneuvers largely go by the board, replaced by cogent critiques of each operation. While this makes for easier listening, the lack of downloadable maps means full enjoyment requires at least a passing acquaintance with the geography of the different theaters.
Like any good historian, Beevor humanizes his narrative with telling quotes and anecdotes while still managing to take in just about every aspect of the struggle, from the suffering of occupied Europe to the importance—and the horrors—of that oft-forgotten conflict, the Sino-Japanese War. He reveals aspects of the Eastern Front I’ve never encountered before, like the Red Army’s sexual exploitation of its female soldiers. The evolution of the “final solution” is traced with as much precision as is possible on that shadowy subject. In a typical instance of his hard-nosed analysis, Beevor underlines the number of doctoral degrees among the architects of that “solution”, a reminder that high intellect is no guarantee of moral rectitude.
Blunt assessments of Allied and Axis leadership, made even blunter by the rapid pace of the narrative, ring true to my previous reading—especially his contrast of Roosevelt (brilliant, cold, calculating) and Churchill (brilliant, sincere, sentimental). The “Rommel myth” gets a severe overhaul, while Montgomery doesn’t fare much better. Nimitz merits respectful treatment; MacArthur not so much. The less said of Mark Clark, the better. And, as bad as Stalin was, he takes second place to Mao.
Having written exclusively on the European and Mediterranean theaters, it’s not surprising that Beevor’s work here reflects that focus. The Pacific gets covered, but not in the same detail or with the easy familiarity apparent elsewhere. But even with that caveat, this is still a five-star listen. And his brief concluding observations on the war's aftermath and aftershocks is an essential listen. Sean Barrett has long been one of my favorite readers. His grim, level-headed delivery is the perfect vehicle for the story of “the greatest man-made disaster in history”.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Gary K Best
- 09-02-19
Anthony Beevor at his best
Very well done. A sad history of our world and the people who shaped it .
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- Kevin Farrell
- 12-24-18
Excellent book and narration.
Best history of WW2 since Shirer’s “Rise and Fall.” This history offers More specific Information on the logistics of the war and on leaders’ thinking. Great narrator. Thanks...
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- megan
- 05-30-14
Really liked it
This was a pretty in-depth book about World War 2 it does seem to spend a lot of time on the atrocities of the sides involved more so then the battles that took place, But it is still very interesting.
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- Julie Rae Loving
- 09-06-21
Very well researched and written
After spending countless hours hearing SEVERAL LONG books chronicling the events of the second World War; I can say that this book is one of the best if not the best one I have heard. The Author is critical of EVERY participant in the entire conflict! I feel it is a well balanced book that gives a realistic picture of what went on to the degree it can be known. VERY long (typical of this kind of book), but worth the time!
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- E. Ronakov
- 05-17-21
Well done
Loved it. Lots of detail workout beginning boring or monotonous. Barrett and Beevor are an incredible pair. I'll be listening to this again in the future!
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- Henry
- 09-07-20
Best single WWII Book
Short perhaps on a lot of details in comparison to tomes such as Richard Atkinson’s, it nonetheless conveys many points not expressed in others I have read. I learned more things in the last chapter or two that I had never heard about in other books to almost make it worth the purchase. And the beginning also gives a great deal of insight into the German Officer Corps. Kudos to the author.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-23-20
Outstanding!
When I started reading this book I did not think much of it, but as stayed the course I was richly rewarded. Of the many war books I’ve read this is the most reflective of the horrors of WW2. Sean’s narration is outstanding. The horrors of the Russian winter, the atrocities of the holocaust , the experience of p.o.ws I n Japanese captivity and the unimaginable suffering of soldiers and non-combatants
Is made clear in this book. Read it or listen to it. It is a sobering experience
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