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In detailing the clash of political philosophies that drove the war's savage engine, Davies also examines how factors as diverse as technology, economics, and morale played dynamic roles in shaping battles, along with the unsung yet vital help of Poland, Greece, and the Ukraine (which suffered the highest number of casualties). And while the Allies resorted to bombing enemy civilians to sow terror, the most damning condemnation is saved for the Soviet Union, whose glossed-over war crimes against British soldiers and its own people prove that Communism and Nazism were two sides of the same brutal coin.
No Simple Victory is an unparalleled work that will fascinate not only history buffs but anyone who is interested in discovering the reality behind what Davies refers to as "the frozen perspective of the winners' history."
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
September 20, 2007 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781400124688
- File size: 593475 KB
- Duration: 20:36:24
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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NO SIMPLE VICTORY is no simple book. Rather than chronicle WWII from beginning to end, the author explores hundreds of its skirmishes and principal characters in no seeming order. He throws out the names of battles, generals, and politicians without assignation, as though we know them all from a previous life. With an aristocratic British accent, Simon Vance does his best to turn a dry and confusing narrative into a pleasant experience. He performs well with French and Russian names but occasionally loses the last word of a sentence. After hearing Vance adopt the author's attitude and read his flight of opinions, the listener might mistake the narrator for Davies himself. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine -
June 25, 2007
The typical Western view of WWII's European Theater—as a struggle between freedom and fascism that climaxed with the Normandy landings—is harshly critiqued in this scathing reappraisal. Historian Davies (Rising '44: The Battle of Warsaw
) argues that British and American campaigns were a “sideshow†to the titanic conflict between the Wehr-macht and the Red Army on the Eastern Front, where most of the fighting and decisive battles occurred. The war was therefore not a “simple victory†of good over evil, he contends, but the defeat of one totalitarian state, Nazi Germany, by another, the Soviet Union, whose crimes were just as vast, if less diabolical. Davies's topical approach judiciously surveys the military, economic and political aspects of the war, often from an Eastern European perspective. He observes, for example, that the region that suffered the most civilian deaths was Ukraine, and that the Soviet Union was initially as much an aggressor—against Poland, Finland and the Baltic states—as Germany. (Poland's travails, Davies's professional specialty, are somewhat overemphasized.) Davies cuts against the grain of popular war histories like Stephen Ambrose's accounts of D-Day and the Bulge, but his interpretations rest on solid scholarly work. Photos. -
December 24, 2007
Davies's latest book about the Second World War is an extended argument that most Americans and Europeans—even well-educated ones—have failed to grasp even the most basic facts about the single largest event of the 20th century. His polemic is laid out slowly and carefully, beginning with the mistakes (the American WWII memorial lists the years of the war as 1941–1945) and proceeding from there. Such a book requires a reader who can hold listeners' attention for long stretches of facts and figures, and Vance is just the man. He sounds like a narrator for a History Channel documentary, and considering the topic, this is perfect for Davies's book. Vance makes Davies's work not another rehashing of familiar material, but a riveting, sustained performance. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, June 25).
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