Warsaw: a city at war, 1939-45
For a mere 21 years, Warsaw thrived as the proud capital of an independent Poland, only to be betrayed when Nazi Germany invaded in 1939. Yet the heart of the city, its people, refused to surrender. This fascinating history illuminates how Warsaw’s centuries-old fight for identity shaped the course of its wartime experience.
Prit Buttar and Lottie Taylor
Osprey, hbk, 416pp (£30)
ISBN 978-1472873514
Frenchman Flat: the rise and fall of atomic bombs
Jon Else recounts the science, politics, and human experience of those who developed nuclear weapons, suffered the consequences, and fought for and against arms control. The throughline of this vast story is a 37-kiloton atomic bomb dubbed ‘Priscilla’ that exploded above a custom-built mini-civilisation at Frenchman Flat, Nevada, in 1957.
Jon Else
Harvard University Press, hbk, 464pp (£24.95)
ISBN 978-0674300354
Collapse: a global history of the Second World War, 1931-1941
Between 1931 and 1949, a series of crises threatened the world order and the very functioning of states, as well as destroying or changing millions of ordinary people’s lives. At the heart of these upheavals was an all encompassing war that was a watershed moment in modern history. Collapse is the first volume of a new global trilogy from Jonathan Fennell.
