Scorched Earth

A Global History of World War II

By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin

A powerful new history of World War II - history's most brutal struggle for survival between imperial powers.

In popular memory, World War II was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, and democratic order over the age empires. Scorched Earth dispatches the myth of World War II as a 'good' war. Instead, it reveals the conflict as a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe. The war was sparked by German and Japanese invasions that threatened the old powers' dominance, not by Allied opposition to fascism. The Allies achieved victory not through pluck and democratic idealism but through savage firebombing raids on civilian targets and the slaughter of millions of Soviet soldiers. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as hyper-militarized new imperial powers, each laying claim to former Axis holdings across the globe before turning on one another and triggering a new forever war.

Dramatically rendered and persuasively argued, Scorched Earth shows that World War II marked the culmination of centuries of colonial violence and ushered in a new era of imperial struggle.©2025 Paul Thomas Chamberlin (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

While historians have long identified World War II as a seminal influence on our contemporary era, none have effectively argued that colonialism in its varied versions was its ultimate legacy-until now. In previous work, Chamberlin contested Cold War realism; likewise, here he upends common assumptions about the Good War. He demythologizes in a way that eloquently covers this epic conflict in all its details-experts and war buffs will find a lot of battle descriptions that are fresh here-while provoking us to rethink our understanding of history itself. Truly a tour de force! (Thomas W. Zeiler, author of ANNIHILATION)

A well written, balanced, and provocative account of the twentieth century's greatest and most destructive war. Paul Thomas Chamberlin covers all the major theaters of the war, smoothly integrating political and military developments. The author's unorthodox interpretation of the Second World War will challenge historians to reexamine long-standing assumptions and beliefs about the origins and nature of this critical conflict (Ronald H. Spector, author of EAGLE AGAINST THE SUN)