REVIEW BY TOBY CLARK Here is a history of the Second World War with a twist. John Buckley is a professor of military history at the University of Wolverhampton and a writer with both academic and popular histories to his…
The greatest battle in American history took place 160 years ago this summer, in July 1863. Fred Chiaventone identifies some common misunderstandings about this crucial engagement.
The most important event in the history of the USA began with a disagreement – over the place of slavery in a democratic society. By the time it ended, more than 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers had given their lives…
Graham Goodlad analyses Cunningham’s masterpiece, the battle which broke the power of fascist Italy in the Mediterranean.
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The Vietnam War and associated public distaste for military intervention also provided a challenge as to how the study of warfare was conducted and presented.
REVIEW: CALUM HENDERSON The new German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which arrived on Netflix last autumn, pulls no punches in its depiction of the savage violence of World War I. In the film,…
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REVIEW BY ANDRÉ VAN LOON Napoleon: the decline and fall of an empire is the compelling, if partial, closing volume of Michael Broers’ Napoleon trilogy. It marks the end of more than a decade of Napoleon-centred writing for Broers, Professor…
In a new book, Robert Kershaw argues that the lack of a German perspective means we have only a partial understanding of the events of May-June 1940. Here, he explains what his research tells us about a battle that changed the tide of the Second World War.
REVIEW BY SIMON BAKER Anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of the SAS may well be familiar with the regiment’s genesis myth: in 1941, a tall Commando called David Stirling, in hospital after a nasty parachute…
Review by Diana Bentley. Few episodes in antiquity are more gripping than the epic struggle for political supremacy and survival between Octavian, heir of Julius Caesar; his rival, politician and general Mark Antony; and Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt. In his…
Eighty years on, David Porter analyses Germany’s plan to launch another great offensive in the summer of 1942.
More than half a century after its publication, it is widely regarded as the inescapable starting point for scholars working on early 20th-century British naval history. What made Marder such an outstanding historian? Above all, it is his command of the primary sources.
As the Russian army commits appalling atrocities in Ukraine, it might not feel like the best time to recall the heroism of the Red Army in the Second World War. But this year marks the 80th anniversary of the titanic…
Neil Faulkner introduces an elite Nazi strike-force and sets the scene for the epic Battle of Crete in May 1941.
Edmund West reports on a medieval naval battle that is little known but was of decisive significance.
The newly released, star-studded British movie Operation Mincemeat is, on one level, about the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. On another, more profound level, it is about how people deceive one another. In its opening commentary, the film announces…
MHM Editor Neil Faulkner recalls one of the great works of military history.
The Japanese surge between December 1941 and June 1942 – between, that is, Pearl Harbor and Midway – created a huge Far Eastern empire comparable with that of the Nazis in Europe. But at that point Japan’s capacity for expansion…
What is immediately striking reading Oman is the depth of his scholarship... These are works of exceptional length and detail.
While many historians drill deeper into their sources and produce more detailed and specialist works, it is excellent to find one of Britain’s best Second World War historians doing the opposite. Blood and Ruins is a vast and encyclopaedic view…
William Stroock analyses the decisive battle of the 1973 Yom Kippur War: a massive clash of Egyptian and Israeli armour in the Sinai Desert.
•Total War: a people’s history of the Second World War
• Churchill, Master and Commander: Winston Churchill at war 1895-1945
• A Dangerous Enterprise: secret war at sea
• A Brave and Cunning Prince: the great chief Opechancanough and the war for America
• Bomber Command: men, machines, and missions, 1936-68
• Ancient Rome: infographics
'Armageddon’ came to English, via Greek, from Hebrew har megiddo, meaning ‘mountain of Megiddo.’
Hitler’s invasion of Russia on 22 June 1941 – Operation Barbarossa – initiated a campaign of epic proportions. While the format of recounting a campaign through the recollections of individual participants is well established, the author does an exceptionally good…
The battle scenes are, in the main, well made, especially in showing what it was like for men hiding in dugouts and wadis in the desert under intense artillery-fire.
David Porter analyses the largest military invasion in history.
John Lock looks at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 in the first of a series of articles looking at the Butterfly Effect – where small incidents have significant consequences.
‘I trust no one, not even myself.’ So the merciless dictator of the Soviet Union reportedly once said. In this new book, Sean McMeekin explores the Second World War from Joseph Stalin’s perspective. From his complex relations with both Winston…
Patrick Mercer reports on a tough fighting regiment of the Napoleonic Wars, let down by dismal command in 1809.
In the summer of 1777, British forces were waging a campaign to finally crush the American rebellion. Kevin Weddle here analyses how Continental Army and Militia forces under Major General Horatio Gates turned the situation around, inflicting a stunning defeat…
Review of James Holland's 'Sicily ’43: the assault on Fortress Europe'.
Alexander Izza reviews the strategy, tactics, weapons, and morale of the opposing forces in the culminating land battle of the Pacific War.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, David Porter analyses the last stand of Hitler’s Third Reich.
Neil Faulkner analyses the Battle of Midway phase by phase.