The World War II Bookshelf: 50 Must-Read Books Fifty Must-Read Books

by Dunnigan, James F.

• ISBN13: 9780806526096
• ISBN10: 0806526092
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-01
• Publisher: Citadel

Summary

Unlike any conflict before or since, World War II was a truly worldwide war, with dozens of nations participating in significant battles in virtually every corner of the globe. In this definitive guide, military analyst James F. Dunnigan chooses fifty titles out of the many thousands of books published on the subject as being the most worthy of a place in your library. He includes incisive commentary on such important volumes as General George S. Patton Jr.'s classic tome War As I Knew It -- a personal and brutally honest narrative of the famed leader's march across Western Europe -- and Studs Terkel's acclaimed oral history A Good War, with its riveting day-to-day accounts of the fighting men of many nations.

Author Biography

James F. Dunnigan is the author of more than twenty books on military subjects. He has been a consultant to the State Department, the CIA, and the Army War College, and is a respected military analyst and frequent on-air commentator for Fox and NBC news, covering both the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. He lives in New York

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
One THE BIG PICTURE	1	(38)
A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg	3	(3)
The Times Atlas of the Second World War edited by John Keegan	6	(3)
Brute Force by John Ellis	9	(2)
War in the Shadows by Robert B. Asprey	11	(7)
The Battle for History by John Keegan	18	(3)
The Historical Encyclopedia of World War II by
Marcel Baudot, Henri Bernard, and Hendrik Brugmans	21	(3)
The Second World War by Winston S. Churchill	24	(5)
The World War II Almanac: 1931-1945 by Robert Goralski	29	(1)
The World War II Databook by John Ellis and Michael Cox	30	(3)
Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy	33	(6)
Two THE WAR IN THE WEST (EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST)	39	(80)
Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower	41	(6)
Deception in World War II by Charles Cruickshank	47	(8)
Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944-1945 by Russell Weigley	55	(5)
Fighting Power: German and U S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 by Martin Van Creveld	60	(8)
Hitler's Last Weapons by Jozef Garlinski	68	(5)
Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings	73	(8)
Popski's Private Army by Vladimir Peniakoff	81	(3)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer	84	(6)
The Battle of Britain by Richard Hough and Denis Richards	90	(3)
The Last 100 Days by John Toland	93	(2)
The Wizard War by R.V. Jones	95	(4)
Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign, 1944-45 by Ralph Francis Bennett	99	(5)
War As I Knew It by George S. Patton	104	(15)
Three THE WAR IN RUSSIA	119	(26)
Great Battles on the Eastern Front by Trevor Dupuy and Paul Martell	121	(9)
Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth	130	(6)
Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century edited by G.F. Krivosheev	136	(4)
When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler by David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House	140	(5)
Four THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC	145	(52)
A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945 by Paul S. Dull	147	(4)
Eagle Against the Sun by Ronald H. Spector	151	(4)
Guadalcanal by Richard B. Frank	155	(6)
Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook	161	(3)
Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan by Clay Blair Jr.	164	(6)
Soldiers of the Sun by Meirion and Susie Harries	170	(5)
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman	175	(6)
The Japanese Navy in World War II in the Words of Former Japanese Naval Officers edited by David C. Evans	181	(4)
The Pacific War by Saburo Ienaga	185	(3)
The Two-Ocean War by Samuel Eliot Morison	188	(6)
War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945 by Edward S. Miller	194	(3)
Five LARGER ISSUES	197	(84)
Commandos and Rangers of World War II by James Ladd	199	(6)
Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II	205	(5)
Marching Orders by Bruce Lee	210	(7)
Reporting World War II	217	(2)
The American Magic by Ronald Lewin	219	(4)
The American Soldier by S. A. Stouffer et al.	223	(14)
The Good War by Studs Terkel	237	(2)
The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. and the Origins of the C.I.A. by Bradley Smith	239	(5)
There's a War to Be Won by Geoffrey Perret	244	(4)
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey	248	(6)
United States Army in World War II by various authors	254	(15)
Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II by Geoffrey Perret	269	(12)
APPENDIX	281	(6)
Dirty Little Secrets of World War II by James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi
The War in the Pacific Encyclopedia by James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi
INDEX	287