The Battle For History

Refighting World War Two

Select a format:

Retailers:

Amazon Apple Books Google Play Hive Kobo

Summary

Although 50 years have passed since the end of World War II, there has as yet been no definitive history of that conflict. Existing histories have raised as many questions as they answer: Did Roosevelt have foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbour? Could the Allies have invaded France before 1944? Might bombing the Auschwitz railway have impeded the course of the Holocaust? John Keegan here assesses the literature that has emerged from World War II - and the controversies it has generated - in a book that combines stunning erudition with crisp prose and highly personal discernment.

Reviews

John Keegan - dapper, lantern-jawed, a man who pounds facts into place as if with a sledgehammer - is the military historian's military historian... If he did not exist, the History Channel would not be able to invent him.
New York Times

About the author

John Keegan

John Keegan is the Defence Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Britain's foremost military historian. The Reith Lecturer in 1998, he is the author of many bestselling books including The Face of Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, Battle at Sea, The Second World War, A History of Warfare (awarded the Duff Cooper Prize), Warpaths, The Battle for History, The First World War, and most recently, Intelligence in War. For many years John Keegan was the Senior Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and he has been a Fellow of Princeton University and Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the OBE in the Gulf War honours list, and was knighted in the Millennium honours list in 1999. John Keegan died in August 2012.

Learn More