The Second World War: A Complete History

By: Martin Gilbert

Narrated by: Bernard Mayes

Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, offers a complete history of World War II.

It began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. By the time it came to an end on V-Day - August 14, 1945 - it had involved every major power, and had become global in its reach. In the final accounting, it would turn out to be - in both human terms and material resources - the costliest war in history, taking the lives of forty-six million people.

With unparalleled scholarship and breadth of vision, Gilbert weaves together all of the war’s aspects - the political, the military, the diplomatic, and, not least, the civilian - charting an almost day-by-day account of the terrible progress of the war’s juggernaut of death and destruction. Through it all, his aim is to show what happened, not from the point of view of any one of the warring nations but from a global perspective. The result is the first total history of this global war, a work that is both a treasure trove of information and a gripping dramatic narrative.

©1989 Martin Gilbert (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Brings the losses and the horrors of the war home to us more urgently than a more accented account might do.” ( New York Times Book Review)

“Mr. Gilbert brings the strongest possible credentials to his history of World War II, and the result is a magisterial work that shows how the greatest war ever fought reached into every corner of the globe.” ( New York Times)

“In his transmission of the horror of the war, Martin Gilbert has achieved something no historian but he could. There is indeed a relentless force about chronology when it is used as a tool by a historian of the status of Martin Gilbert.” ( Sunday Telegraph)

occasional detailed information

the book itself isn't inherently bad. it's not nearly as well written as the WW1 history by the same author. the narrator did a great job but it sounds like absolute trash like it's being read through a tin can in a bathroom. there is also a small voice that can be heard in the background constantly that is driving me nuts.

great and comprehensive

liked the detail of the story, sometimes bordering on excessive, but it was God.

Great for what it sought to be

Not a lot of background information, but very detailed about the War itself. You can tell it was recorded some time ago, but as you continue listening you get used to it. Great listen!

Boychik

This is the finest quality bakin you can find on here the zingers are the best

Excellent book, a little dry performance

Loved the book. Audio quality isn't up to snuff, which gives the dry performance no help.

Very detailed

The statistics and details are incredible they are woven into the story so they fit very well and don’t get in the way of the story

Good story horrible audio

The audio made this very hard to listen to. It’s obviously about WW2 and the audio sounds like it is too. I enjoyed his WW1 book so this one is just as good, but fair warning, it’s hard on the ears

Very Detailed

I enjoyed the book immensely and learned quite a bit. I thought it would be more about battles and such. The focus was more detailed on deaths and numbers.

Ok but lacking

Thought there would have been more about the strategic and combat side than there was. Was more about the atrocities of the war than anything.

Good Introduction and Overview, Dry as Toast

This book would have killed me as a college student, I wouldn't have got past chapter 3. If you have limited time to listen, I may skip this for something else. I have the luxury of working in a plant that is so loud that I wear earbuds and tractor headphones and can listen for 40 to 60 hours a week. It means I miss out on many shorter books as I won't spend credit on something less than 20 hours or so, but I also have time to get through books like this and not feel I'm wasting time.

This is almost literally a day by day account of certain aspects of the war. It's told from an English perspective which I didn't expect and certain nation's appear as no more than statistics. The narrator sounds like he is sitting in a tin can but it didn't distract me. He also misses a lot of F sounds so I always thought it was cutting out.

The author more or less presents the reader with statistical figures and brief stories, but there is almost no analysis which I found both good and bad. I wasn't told what to think, but often a little more information would have gone a long way. I realized how little I knew of the war especially in terms of what happened when and in this it was extremely valuable.

In many ways I felt that this could have been written by a some what out dated A.I. The many atrocities are horrible for what they are, not by any addition of the writer. Good and bad both get glossed over and when the book is over, I felt numb and a bit sick of humanity. But now I have good ideas of where to dig deeper.