2024 the best minds reviews review

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(as of Nov 09, 2024 18:59:08 UTC - Details)

"Overy has written a masterpiece of analytical history, posing and answering one of the great questions of the century."—Sunday Times (London)

Richard Overy's bold book begins by throwing out the stock answers to this great question: Germany doomed itself to defeat by fighting a two-front war; the Allies won by "sheer weight of material strength." In fact, by 1942 Germany controlled almost the entire resources of continental Europe and was poised to move into the Middle East. The Soviet Union had lost the heart of its industry, and the United States was not yet armed.

The Allied victory in 1945 was not inevitable. Overy shows us exactly how the Allies regained military superiority and why they were able to do it. He recounts the decisive campaigns: the war at sea, the crucial battles on the eastern front, the air war, and the vast amphibious assault on Europe. He then explores the deeper factors affecting military success and failure: industrial strength, fighting ability, the quality of leadership, and the moral dimensions of the war.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DJ3KVF9R
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (November 12, 2024)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 12, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 15243 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 406 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0712674535
Reviewer: Dianne Roberts
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Engaging and Amazing History
Review: Richard Overy's answer to why the allies won WWII is history at its best, not just a loose collection of details in chronological order, but a solid facts based analysis designed to answer a question of value and importance. As someone who felt like I already knew a decent amount about WWII, my view of this most important conflict in the modern world was significantly and surprisingly changed.In a world that seems starving for silver bullet, quick answers to problems Richard Overy's in depth analysis instead paradoxically delivers believability in equal proportion with a lack of any clarifying simplicity. He divides his book into two general sections, the first half on the most decisive battles of the war, and the second half exploring the underlying factors that translated into fighting ability for all the major combatants.The battles include the fight for control of the seas, which includes both Midway in the Pacific and the U-boat war in the Atlantic, the related battles of Kursk and Stalingrad, the bomber war in the skies over Germany, and the D-Day invasion of France. All of these battles were neccessary taken together in turning the tide from initial Axis victories to eventual Allied success. The amazing thing that Overy points out is how bitterly fought, closely contested, and just how razor thin the margins of victory were for the allied forces in each of these clashes. The Atlantic war was won only when a handful of long range patrol bombers that could close the Atlantic Gap became operational, and only then could supplies reach Britain to start the offensive in the West. Midway was won with just ten bombs out of hundreds dropped actually hitting their targets. The mere addition of drop tanks to allied fighters finally allowed them to fight and eliminate the Luftwaffe, and allowed the huge Allied bombing effort to finally work as envisaged. The drawdown of Luftwaffe power from the East to fight the bombers, and the miraculous regeneration of the Red Army contributed decisively to Stalingrad and Kursk. What he makes clear in this section is that World War II was not just a competition of steel production or factory line efficiency between the powers writ large on a Titanic scale, but a brutal, bloody slugging match, with small operational details well within the abilities of any of the combatants forging the difference between victory and defeat in the field.The second half of the book is dedicated to the behind the front line factors that contribute to wars, including economic strength, technological prowess, national leadership ability and coalition unity, and morality and the will to fight. This was some of the best investigating in the book, with vivid and revealing comparisons between the Axis and Allies. Although the operational battles were where the actual victory of the war was secured, these behind the scene factors were what stacked the deck in favor of the Allies. Overy shows convincingly that based on the ability to field and fight large militaries WWII was mostly between Germany on one side, and The Soviet Union and the United States on the other. The extreme inferiority of Japanese and Italian industry made them actors playing in the wake of German fortunes only, and while Britain's contributions were more significant than the Japanese or Italians they too paled relative to the three prime players.There are many striking themes in this second section. The failure of Nazi Germany in turning its vast technological and economic potential, -and the resources of its conquered territories- into an efficient military-industrial complex. The centralized use of terror, hatred, and superhuman effort that saved Soviet Industry from the Nazi onslaught, and then rebuilt it greater than before, contrasted to the capitalist, incentive based American industrial economy that sought companies to volunteer to mass manufacture what they thought they best could. The operational flexibility of the Allied forces wrought from disastrous early forays in battle, versus the ossified operational rigidity of the Axis stemming from too much early success. The central role that will and morality played in the ultimate defeat of the Axis. The ability of Allied nations as ideologically and culturally opposite to each other as the Soviet Union and US/UK to combine in the face of a common enemy, where Italy was mostly a diversionary drain on German power and cooperation with Japan was effectively non-existent.Richard Overy makes some amazing conclusions. WWII's largest theater by far was between the Soviets and the Germans, with the blood of 20 million Soviets ultimately paying the price for destruction of the Nazis, and the contributions of the US and other allies, while key, were small in comparison. WWII merely saved democracy, but it made the world safe for communism instead as where the bulk of the fighting took place (i.e. Eastern Europe and China) became communist at the end of the war. The degree to which post war liberal western power and comfort were the result of Soviet brutality, depredation and death on an untold scale is unsettling to say the least.So why did the Allies win? You'll have to -and definitely should- read the book to get the full answer, but the short answer is that miraculously every element of the allied war effort worked better than the axis effort. Without this the unconditional surrender of the fascist states could never have been brought about. His last chapter, with great insights on the centrality of will and morality on the outcome of the war, is one of the best pieces of war writing I have ever read and has the most import for our current war. It makes for a fitting capstone to a great book.Perhaps the most striking fact of the whole book is how much Allied victory was not pre-ordained by national factors such as manpower and industrial might. No less a figure than Wintson Churchill himself attributed Allied victory to providence alone.

Reviewer: Mark Harnitchek
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Critical Thinking About WWII
Review: I read Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won with little expectation of learning much that was new. Even the most casual student of WWII, of which I count myself, knows the conventional explanation about why the Allies won. The Allies’ industrial economies, the United States’ in particular, simply out-produced and overwhelmed the Axis. Once the Allies’ war economies hit their stride, victory was all but guaranteed -- end of story. Overy argues this oft-repeated narrative is illusory and suggests a high degree of historical determinism. To even ask the question of why the Allies won, the author submits, is to propose that other outcomes, short of absolute victory, were possible. This is precisely Overy’s argument: other outcomes were entirely possible. In fact, Overy contends the outcome in the middle years of the war was anything but certain as the “conflict was poised on a knife’s edge.” The author builds his case with familiar primary and secondary WWII sources. The strength of Why the Allies Won and the power of its argument, however, is Overy’s critical analysis and thoughtful interpretation of his sources.The essence of Overy’s case is that the Allies’ ability to consistently improve the qualitative performance of their forces, technology, and logistics coupled with their ever-increasing quantitative supremacy in numbers were the keys to victory. In other words, the Allied economies made victory possible, but by no means automatic. The Axis, on the other hand, did little to modernize and improve the effectiveness of their forces and support arms after their stunning successes against France and Great Britain in 1940 and the Soviet Union in 1941. Similarly, when they had the upper-hand from an economic perspective – which they had from 1939 to 1942 – the Germans failed to fully utilize their industrial power and vast resources.Overy makes his case for the Allies warfighting ascendency and ultimate victory using two historical approaches. The first is a review of four decisive “zones of conflict” between 1942 and 1945 where the Allies applied maximum efforts and prevailed: the war at sea (Coral Sea and the Battles of Midway and the Atlantic), the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk on the Eastern front, the tactical and strategic air war against Germany, and the invasion and reconquest of Western Europe. In each of these zones, Overy illustrates how the Allies’ strategic and operational decision cycles were faster and their tactical performance more effective than the Axis. Similarly, the Allies consistently outpaced the Axis in translating emerging battlefield requirements and lessons learned into the mass production of technology that improved warfighting.The Eastern front is an example of Overy’s ability to apply critical thinking and get beyond the numbers. At Kursk, the conventional wisdom held that the Soviets did not win; the Germans lost due to overwhelming Soviet numbers and Hitler’s meddling. Overy blows-up the overwhelming numbers argument by illustrating that the 1941 Soviet Army vastly outnumbered the Germans in machine and men, but still suffered catastrophic defeats. Similarly, it was the German General Staff, not Hitler, that planned and executed Operation Citadel. Finally, the Soviet’s modest advantage in numbers at Kursk cannot explain the enormity of the German loss. Instead, Overy argues effectively that, by 1943, the Soviets had bested the Germans in every warfighting discipline that made the difference at Kursk: doctrine, leadership, combined arms operations, communications, intelligence, and logistics. Pound for pound, the Soviets were simply better than the Germans. In each of these zones of conflict, Overy demonstrates that, without the means to employ it effectively at the operational level, quantitative superiority was no guarantor of victory.Overy’s second approach deals with factors that enabled the operational success in the zones of conflict – production, technology, leadership and moral rectitude. Here the book shines as Overy shifts the analysis and interpretation into high gear. The author is especially effective at contrasting what the Allies did right and what the Axis did wrong. On the economic front, the Soviets relied on clear lines of authority and central planning to restore their wrecked 1941 economy and get it running in high gear by late 1942. The United States empowered the nation’s captains of industry to mass produce everything from B-17 bombers to Sherman tanks. By 1944, Soviet and United States workers were twice as productive their counterparts in Germany and four times better than the Japanese. Overy also successfully argues that, until early 1943 when the Soviets were making the most of their “attenuated resources”, the “new German Empire failed to make the most of its economic advantages” (182). Had the Germans chosen to do otherwise, and they could have, the course of the war might have been much different.In the area of technology, Overy argues that standardization, limited types of major combat equipment such as tanks, trucks and airplanes, and production simplicity carried the day for the Allies. So, while the Soviets and United States were producing simple T-34 and Sherman tanks by the tens of thousands, the Germans were producing expensive, over-engineered, albeit effective, Tiger tanks. By 1944, Soviet tank production in one month exceeded an entire year of German output. The key, Overy contends, is that the Germans could have taken a different course of action to even the odds, but chose not to do so.The decisive factor, Overy contends, for Allied success on the economic and technology front was decidedly effective strategic leadership. Unity of command and unity of effort characterized the Allies efforts across the board. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, each with their own particular leadership style, communicated their strategic intent to clear-thinking senior military officers and civilians who in-turn delegated tasks to a focused and responsive bureaucracy that made things happen. Hitler’s regime on the other hand was handicapped by his own well-documented meddling and inability to think strategically. Hitler’s General Staff was similarly ineffective and focused almost exclusively on combat operations at the expense of logistics, and there was little unity of effort among the German and Japanese military services. Instead, competition, back-biting, and inter-service rivalry characterized the Axis armies, navies and air forces. Finally, the German economy was plagued by a lethargic bureaucracy, a lack of coordination, and a dearth central planning.Overy’s final point is that Allied morale and fighting spirit was higher because they were “fighting the good fight” against monstrous totalitarian regimes. This argument is somewhat thin given that Axis soldiers fought just as hard as the Allies without holding the moral high ground. For whatever reason – ideology, fear of the enemy, fear of the regime, unit cohesion, et al – Axis soldiers battled ferociously until the bitter end. The American in me wants to take Overy’s side in this argument; however, it just does not wash given the reality of what made the WWII soldier fight.In the end, however, this is a small blemish on an otherwise powerfully written and highly readable work. Overy makes his argument – that the Allied victory was not predetermined by economic primacy – with rock solid analysis and clear-thinking interpretation. Why the Allies Won is a worthwhile read for the academic and WWII buff. It also offers a valuable lesson in applying a healthy dose of scholarly skepticism when a historical event is presented as a fait accompli.

Reviewer: Bruce Dallas
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The book points out an important truth. The Nazi's and the Japanese could have won and imposed their moral degeneracy upon the world. The book explains why they did'nt. The economic power of the allies harnessed into a military machine which eventually crushed the Nazis and the Japanese militarist, but just in time.It gives a good framework for further reading and IT DOESNT SEND YOU TO SLEEP like some more specialised works.

Reviewer: P. Bruno L. Araujo
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: De certa forma o prefácio do cientista Merle Tuve ao livro "The Deadly Fuse" resume a vantagem que os Aliados tiveram sobre os alemães, exceto no que diz respeito a Rússia. Mostra também como a colaboração entre os Aliados era muito maior que entre os países do Eixo.

Reviewer: beezie's 3rd
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book offers a fascinating analysis of the 2nd WW focused on the organizational and planning differences between the Allies and Axis powers rather than just battlefield performance. Very interesting and thought provoking read.

Reviewer: Andy Glessner
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Very good product and fast delivery, and a good price. I am very satisfied with theis product and the supplier.

Reviewer: Gavin Sprott
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book proves that even where the answers have long looked "obvious", there is always plenty of room for a fresh look by an original mind and diligent scholar. The short answer offered might be summarized: after their conquest of France, the Germans had the ball at their feet, but their threw the chance away through a surprising degree of incompetence, inefficiency and structural deficiency, and not just strategic blunders. And it was not just some fanatical resistance that saved the Soviet Union (although that also comes over as quite extraordinary) but a structural resilience that could out-produce the Germans from a seriously diminished industrial base.Statistics can be a bore, but in this book I found them illuminating and kept going back to them, from the structure and volume of industrial production to the extraordinary number of attempts on Hitler's life. Beyond the statistics the human factor is well considered. The mental limitations not just of Hitler but particularly of Goring and Udet (in military terms) were perhaps in themselves fatal to the Nazi cause. How a visceral detestation of everything the Nazis stood for kept quite disparate Allies together is well accounted for. And interestingly but on reflection not surprisingly, the outbreak of war was greeted in Germany with dismay. (An eyewitness told me that the folk cheering the troop trains off to Poland were a rent-a-crowd. The euphoria that greeted the conquest of France was short-lived. The Stalingrad dismay was not just the prospect pf possible failure, but the fear of retribution for "all the bad things we have done" that soldiers on leave had talked about. Despite all the press and newsreel razzamatazz of Nazi enthusiasm, when it came to another war, actually their heart was not in it).The consequences of the Germans not overrunning Britain in 1940 are spelt out: the failure to control the sea, to get vital imports and Middle Eastern oil: the survival of an offshore base from which the RAF and USAF and then the Western Allies' land forces opened fronts that tied up a huge German defensive capacity and fatally drew the bulk of the Luftwaffe away from the Soviet front. Whether the Germans had the military capacity if skillfully handled to make a successful leap across the Channel in 1940 we will never really know. Did they have the mental resources in terms of organization and strategic thinking? On the showing of this book, no, and that's why they didn't try it, and that's why the Allies won.An absorbing book, and not a hair of triumphalist hogwash. The terrible destruction the RAF and USAF visited on German civilians in order to limit the war production they worked in was part and parcel of Hitler’s undoing, but the moral question of bombing cities is also raised. Overy could easily have quoted Harris's arresting and indeed arguable statement about sowing winds and reaping whirlwinds, but he he doesn't, and leaves a menacing question hovering. That is also part of the quality of this book.