Second World War Diary - Part I

The War Day by Day

By: Jose Delgado

Narrated by: Drew Crosby

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. A number of victims difficult to conceive, never surpassed by any other conflict; the masses of men, women, and resources mobilized in a conflict that shook even the most remote ends of the planet; the ideological battle between totalitarianism and democracy, between fascism and communism, the passions and hatred that it aroused; the unimaginable horror and fanaticism of the Holocaust; geopolitical games; the repetition of World War I on an even more dire scale.

The war was a gigantic melting pot of violence, power, and ideology that will leave an indelible scar on human history. In many ways, our world is the direct fruit of 1945, and the memory of fascism and the resistance against it, the Shoah and the millions of lives lost, are at the core of political culture and moral and psychological fiber of many modern societies. And if the legacy of war has faded somewhat in recent decades, the turmoil the world is currently experiencing is violently awakening his memory. The waves of refugees fleeing violence and poverty, the destruction of war and genocide in the Middle East, the rise of populist movements in Europe and North America, the growing tensions between Russia and the West, the centrifugal tendencies that are Breaking Europe, the turn toward economic protectionism and political isolationism brings with them disturbing reverberations from the world that produced World War II.

This Diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value: It is an insurmountable encyclopedia published now as an audiobook. This World War II Diary represents a milestone in this field.

This audiobook includes four hours, the four months, day by day, from September 1939 to December 1939.

©2010 Pacific Media, S.L. (P)2020 Pacific Media, S.L.

Good information terrible sound effects!

The books provided a wealth of information, but the decision to add sound effects in the background makes listening to the material irritating. That in my opinion ruined what could be a good book. I am ready to put it away and never finish the book!

Has flaws, but is uniquely good

The good: the day by day approach tells the story in a uniquely good way. If you are a WW2 history fan and want a "you are there" feel, and a fine grain of detail, this is exceptional. It puts in details across the whole canvas of events, and a feel for the pace of events, that I see nowhere else. The narrator has a pretty clear voice (but see "bad" below). I found it easy after a short time to ignore the background noises when I wished to.

The bad: the background noises (in a continuous stream, but not TOO loud) are silly and not much (if any) help. Some may find them annoying. I didn't mind them. The narrator's otherwise good strong voice is countered by his mispronouncing many of the unusual words or names (places and people, foreign names, etc.). I already know all the correct pronunciations, and I know what, and who, he is referring to. It is easy to get it from context, if you know some basics of the story. And those who don't know basics of the story would not spend 60+ hours on this anyway.

Most brutal narrator ever

Drew Crosby butchers about every other word. How does a horrid performance like this pass any rudimentary level of quality assurance?