Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945

"Do we need another doorstop history of the best chronicled war of all time? When the book tries to do something wholly new – urges us to think of World War II in a completely new way – the answer is an emphatic yes. Only rarely do such books appear, and this is one of those rarest of books – and one that future histories of that conflict will likely be measured against for a while (and also one that was unexpectedly a perfect companion to the on-going conflict in Ukraine; I can’t remember the number of times I scribbled in the margins, “Just like today!”)"