New Releases by Max Hastings

The last weeks of World War II on the Western Front in Europe witnessed extraordinary scenes of heroism, horror, melodrama and pathos.

One of Bookbub's Best Nonfiction of 2025 From the best-selling military historian, a thrilling account of the valiant British role in the D-Day invasion. Between 1941 and 1944, the British army contributed relatively little to World War II. On the unremittingly bloody Eastern Front, no Russian or German soldier had experienced the luxury of having four years to prepare and train for a resumption of the European continental campaign. But on D-Day—June 6, 1944—the lives of British soldiers changed. Thiry-five thousand infantrymen, airmen, and special service operatives were sent headfirst into the whitest heat of war, almost overnight. Max Hastings’s Sword Beach tells the story of a handful of British soldiers and their critical role in D-Day’s parachute and seaborne offensive. On Sword, the codename of one of the two beaches assaulted by the British, scores of soldiers were killed by the first shots that they ever heard fired in anger. One British corporal insisted on apologizing to his enemy prisoners, and the Free French troops, 120-men strong, suffered 60 percent losses in the first days of fighting. With his signature blend of drama and detail, Hastings shows how the men who landed on Sword played a critical role in Britain’s preeminent landmark victory and the most spectacular battlefield event of World War II in the West. Sword Beach fills in many of the missing pieces and human stories that have long been left out of the sweeping macro-stories of the Normandy invasion. Based on published memoirs, interviews with D-Day veterans, and rigorous research, Hastings lends color and shade to the climactic action of the Western Front’s most famous battle. Sword Beach describes the lives of a small number of men, on a single day, who faced the immediate transition from make-believe battle to the war’s most violent circumstances.

Operación Biting arroja luz a uno de los momentos históricos más emocionantes y menos conocidos de la segunda guerra mundial. En su nuevo libro, Max Hastings narra la historia de la Operación Biting, uno de los asaltos de comandos paracaidistas británicos más emocionantes y probablemente el más exitoso de la segunda guerra mundial. En febrero de 1942, la inteligencia de la RAF descubrió una nueva red de radar alemana en la costa de la Europa ocupada conocida como Würzburg. Esta innovación tecnológica ponía en jaque a las fuerzas aliadas, así que la inteligencia británica propuso un asalto para capturar componentes clave. La operación se llevó a cabo la noche del 27 al 28 de febrero, cuando 120 hombres de las Fuerzas Aerotransportadas fueron lanzados en paracaídas sobre Bruneval, Normandía, en medio de una tormenta de nieve. A pesar de errores de cálculo que dejaron a algunos soldados lejos de su objetivo, lograron desmontar el radar enemigo, enfrentarse a la Wehrmacht y escapar por mar en un audaz rescate hacia Portsmouth. Max Hastings relata este episodio histórico lleno de suspense con detalles previamente no documentados, a la vez que retrata los personajes clave involucrados: desde el científico que diseñó la operación hasta el carismático Lord Mountbatten, pasando por el ingeniero Charlie Cox, quien desmanteló el radar, los agentes secretos franceses que arriesgaron sus vidas en misiones de reconocimiento y el mayor John Frost, líder de los paracaidistas en acción. Operación Biting arroja luz a uno de los momentos históricos más emocionantes y menos conocidos de la segunda guerra mundial.

Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded. In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors. Combining in-depth research with Hasting’s well-honed insights, The Abyss is a human history that unfolds on a wide, colorful canvas. As the action moves back and forth from Moscow to Washington, DC, to Havana, Hastings seeks to explain, as much as to describe, the attitudes and conduct of the Soviets, Cubans, and Americans, and to recreate the tension and heightened fears of countless innocent bystanders whose lives hung in the balance. Reflecting on the outcome of these events, he reveals how the aftermath of this momentous crisis continues to reverberate today. Powerful, and riveting, filled with compelling detail and told with narrative flair, The Abyss is history at its finest.

Nooit was de wereld dichter bij de afgrond dan in 1962

A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings ‘the heart-stopping story of the missile crisis’ Daily Telegraph

Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus Reviews Now in paperback, one of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force's 617 Squadron. The attack on Nazi Germany's dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story--and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron--has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis's mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams--the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron's valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses--making the mission a success. An example of Churchill's "military theatre" at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology--a story to be told for generations to come. Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.

Kompletně zpracovaná kronika jednoho z nejtragičtějších konfliktů dvacátého století. „Charakteristicky vytříbené, monumentální dílo, které skvěle vykresluje politické, kulturní, vojenské a sociální faktory, jež vedly k jednomu z nejkontroverznějších a nejničivějších konfliktů v historii USA.“ GENERÁL DAVID PETRAEUS Vietnam je místem, kde byl západní svět zatažen do jednoho z nejkontroverznějších střetů moderní doby, který začal ponižujícím vojenským fiaskem Francie v roce 1954 a vyvrcholil mnohem potupnější porážkou Spojených států amerických v roce 1975. Max Hastings tři roky shromažďoval materiály, včetně rozhovorů s mnoha přímými účastníky konfliktu na obou stranách a velkého množství amerických a vietnamských dokumentů a memoárů, aby tento zdlouhavý a složitý konflikt mohl zachytit ve vší jeho spletitosti. Žádná dřívější publikace dosud nedokázala politickou a vojenskou historii vietnamského konfliktu věrně skloubit se strhujícími osobními příběhy jeho účastníků. Max Hastings se tohoto úkolu dle očekávání zhostil výtečně. Svědectví vojenských vůdců i rolníků, státníků i vojáků, která se mu podařilo získat, spoludotváří toto výjimečné faktografické dílo. MAX HASTINGS zachycuje válku ve Vietnamu i díky svým vlastním zkušenostem: v letech 1967–1968 byl zpravodajem ve Spojených státech, kde se setkal s mnoha klíčovými aktéry, včetně prezidenta Lyndona Johnsona, a následně pracoval na mnoha novinových reportážích i pro televizní stanici BBC přímo v Indočíně. Byl jedním z evakuovaných, když Američané v roce 1975 spěšně vyklízeli svou ambasádu v Saigonu. Hastings je autorem dvaceti šesti knih, v nichž se zabýval převážně ozbrojenými konflikty. V letech 1986–2002 byl šéfredaktorem deníku Daily Telegraph a redaktorem novin Evening Standard. Za svou novinářskou práci i za své knihy získal četná ocenění. Jeho poslední, velmi úspěšné publikace Katastrofa 1914 a Tajná válka byly přeloženy do mnoha světových jazyků včetně češtiny

‘A gripping new collection from Max Hastings that puts you at the heart of the battle ... Compelling’ Daily Mail ‘An unmissable read’ Sunday Times

De beroemde historicus Max Hastings reconstrueert een van de meest opwindende gebeurtenissen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog: Operation Pedestal

Renowned historian Max Hastings recreates one of the most thrilling events of World War II: Operation Pedestal, the British action to save its troops from starvation on Malta—an action-packed tale of courage, fortitude, loss, and triumph against all odds. In 1940, Hitler had two choices when it came to the Mediterranean region: stay out, or commit sufficient forces to expel the British from the Middle East. Against his generals’ advice, the Fuhrer committed a major strategic blunder. He ordered the Wehrmacht to seize Crete, allowing the longtime British bastion of Malta to remain in Allied hands. Over the fall of 1941, the Royal Navy and RAF, aided by British intelligence, used the island to launch a punishing campaign against the Germans, sinking more than 75 percent of their supply ships destined for North Africa. But by spring 1942, the British lost their advantage. In April and May, the Luftwaffe dropped more bombs on Malta than London received in the blitz. A succession of British attempts to supply and reinforce the island by convoy during the spring and summer of 1942 failed. British submarines and surface warships were withdrawn, and the remaining forces were on the brink of starvation. Operation Pedestal chronicles the ensuing British mission to save those troops. Over twelve days in August, German and Italian forces faced off against British air and naval fleets in one of the fiercest battles of the war, while ships packed with supplies were painstakingly divided and dispersed. In the end only a handful of the Allied ships made it, most important among them the SS Ohio, carrying the much-needed fuel to the men on Malta. As Hastings makes clear, while the Germans claimed victory, it was the British who ultimately prevailed, for Malta remained a crucial asset that helped lead to the Nazis’ eventual defeat. While the Royal Navy never again attempted an operation on such scale, Hasting argues that without that August convoy the British on Malta would not have survived. In the cruel accountancy of war, the price was worth paying.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings.

Within Western culture, World War Two continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination for generations unborn when it took place. The obvious explanation is that it was the greatest and most terrible event in human history. Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity. Among citizens of modern democracies to whom serious hardship and collective peril are unknown, the tribulations which hundreds of millions endured between 1939 and 1945 are almost beyond comprehension. Hastings tells the story of the war in a clear and compelling narrative, ranging across a vast canvas from the agony of Poland in 1939 and the horrors of the Soviet front to the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan in August 1945. This is a book which shows vividly what war meant for individuals from allied soldiers, sailors and airmen, to SS killers, to civilians caught up in the war like British housewives who endured the Blitz and the citizens of Leningrad who suffered through a siege of almost unimaginable horror.

Il leggendario sbarco in Normandia, quel 6 giugno 1944 che nell’immaginario collettivo è rimasto come il D-Day, aveva nome in codice “Overlord”. Lacerando il sipario della retorica e degli interessi di parte, Hastings ne ricostruisce la storia completa, dai preparativi alla faticosa battaglia, incerta fino all’ultimo, per la conquista dell’entroterra, rendendo giustizia all’esercito tedesco, schiacciato tra i contrordini di Hitler e la superiorità numerica degli alleati, ma ancora determinato a combattere per contendere ogni centimetro all’avanzata alleata. E rendendo inoltre giustizia ai reparti inglesi e americani, che emergono come i veri vincitori dell’operazione Overlord, e cioè come coloro che seppero spesso rimediare col proprio spirito d’iniziativa ai risvolti non sempre edificanti delle decisioni degli stati maggiori. In quest’opera, una sapiente miscela di appassionato interesse e di lucida obiettività, l’esperto di storia militare troverà una documentazione ineccepibile e il grande pubblico rivivrà quei giorni come in un romanzo, dove gli eventi che decisero le sorti del mondo si intrecciano ai piccoli episodi che ne compongono il mosaico. «Il reportage di Max Hastings della battaglia è degno di stare accanto a quello dei migliori giornalisti e scrittori che hanno assistito in prima persona a questi eventi... Un omaggio alla sua abilità come storico». The New York Times Book Review «Un resoconto brillante e conciso». The Washington Post Book World

Questo libro si occupa di alcune delle persone più affascinanti che presero parte alla Seconda guerra mon-diale. Un esercito di uomini e donne che, non sparando un solo colpo, influirono profondamente sull’esito degli eventi: spie, crittoanalisti, guerriglieri che condussero una guerra segreta per carpire informazioni e strategie del nemico. Dalla leggendaria GC&CS, la Government Code and Cypher School di Bletchley Park che fu il più im-portante fulcro dello spionaggio del conflitto e che attraverso la creazione delle «bombe» elettromeccaniche di Alain Turing, e la conseguente decifrazione del traffico di «Enigma», inferse un duro colpo al sistema di comunicazioni della Germania; alla produzione di materiale dell’«Ultra», la complicata operazione di de-crittazione dei messaggi delle macchine cifranti da parte dei geniali matematici e linguisti britannici e ame-ricani che permise al direttivo alleato di pianificare le proprie campagne e operazioni nella seconda metà della guerra con una precisione che a nessun comandante militare era mai stata consentita nella storia; ai crittoanalisti di Nimitz nel Pacifico; alle reti di spie dell’«Orchestra rossa» operanti nell’impero nazista per conto dell’Unione Sovietica, fino ai Cinquecento di Washington e di Berkeley – un piccolo esercito di ame-ricani di sinistra che si prestarono a fare da informatori per lo spionaggio sovietico, Max Hastings risco-struisce in queste pagine la storia di una guerra in cui spionaggio e operazioni clandestine assunsero un’importanza mai avuta in precedenza. Avvincente racconto di storie e di uomini, di insospettabili tradimenti e cieche fedeltà, di verità e impo-sture, La guerra segreta è stato accolto, al suo apparire in Inghilterra, dall’entusiasmo di critica e pubblico e salutato come un libro indispensabile per chiunque voglia accostarsi a quel grande e tragico evento che fu la Seconda guerra mondiale. «Avvincente come un romanzo di spionaggio». Sunday Times «Autorevole, coinvolgente e magnificamente scritto». Daily Telegraph «Un vero thriller con il suo cast di killer, impostori e magnifiche avventuriere. La migliore storia di spionaggio militare mai scritta». Simon Sebag Montefiore

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Max Hastings—preeminent military historian—takes us back to the bloody bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than two-hundred vets—including the Chinese—Hastings follows real officers and soldiers through the battles. He brilliantly captures the Cold War crisis at home—the strategies and politics of Truman, Acheson, Marshall, MacArthur, Ridgway, and Bradley—and shows what we should have learned in the war that was the prelude to Vietnam.

From the acclaimed military historian, a history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles—the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg—that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud and futility. He traces the path to war, making clear why Germany and Austria-Hungary were primarily to blame, and describes the gripping first clashes in the West, where the French army marched into action in uniforms of red and blue with flags flying and bands playing. In August, four days after the French suffered 27,000 men dead in a single day, the British fought an extraordinary holding action against oncoming Germans, one of the last of its kind in history. In October, at terrible cost the British held the allied line against massive German assaults in the first battle of Ypres. Hastings also re-creates the lesser-known battles on the Eastern Front, brutal struggles in Serbia, East Prussia and Galicia, where the Germans, Austrians, Russians and Serbs inflicted three million casualties upon one another by Christmas. As he has done in his celebrated, award-winning works on World War II, Hastings gives us frank assessments of generals and political leaders and masterly analyses of the political currents that led the continent to war. He argues passionately against the contention that the war was not worth the cost, maintaining that Germany’s defeat was vital to the freedom of Europe. Throughout we encounter statesmen, generals, peasants, housewives and private soldiers of seven nations in Hastings’s accustomed blend of top-down and bottom-up accounts: generals dismounting to lead troops in bayonet charges over 1,500 feet of open ground; farmers who at first decried the requisition of their horses; infantry men engaged in a haggard retreat, sleeping four hours a night in their haste. This is a vivid new portrait of how a continent became embroiled in war and what befell millions of men and women in a conflict that would change everything.

This award-winning classic of WWII military history chronicles the Royal Air Force''s bombing campaign against Germany. RAF Bomber Command''s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. The struggle began meekly in 1939 with only a few aircraft—Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons—flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, blazing whole German cities in a single night. In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the UK, famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II''s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize

A world-renowned British historian recounts the actions of one of Hitler''s most elite armor units in one of World War II''s most horrific months. June 1944, the month of the D-Day landings carried out by Allied forces in Normandy, France. Germany''s 2nd SS Panzer Division, one of Adolf Hitler''s most elite armor units, had recently been pulled from the Eastern Front and relocated to France in order to regroup, recruit more troops, and restock equipment. With Allied forces suddenly on European ground, the division—Das Reich—was called up to counter the invasion. Its march northward to the shores of Normandy, 15,000 men strong, would become infamous as a tale of unparalleled brutality in World War II. Das Reich is Sir Max Hastings''s narrative of the atrocities committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division during June of 1944: first, the execution of 99 French civilians in the village of Tulle on June 9; and second, the massacre of 642 more in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10. Throughout the book, Hastings expertly shifts perspective between French resistance fighters, the British Secret Service (who helped coordinate the French resistance from afar and on the ground), and the German soldiers themselves. With its rare, unbiased approach to the ruthlessness of World War II, Das Reich explores the fragile moral fabric of wartime mentality. Praise for Das Reich "A gripping blend of narrative and investigation." — Evening Standard "This classic account of WWII is a microcosm of the global conflict. Hastings brings to life the horror that the 2nd SS Panzer division, Das Reich, inflicted upon the citizens living in a bucolic corner of France." —Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel and Hitler''s Panzers

«Scritto con fluidità e autorevolezza, Inferno offre un resoconto della guerra che si concentra sul vissuto degli uomini e delle donne che vi hanno preso parte. Quasi in ogni pagina c’è materiale memorabile ricavato da interviste, diari, lettere, ricordi e documenti personali di vario genere. Una teoria di personaggi e testimoni che dà a questo grandioso libro un respiro quasi tolstoiano». New York Times «Un’opera davvero grandiosa: umana, scettica, vivace, autorevole e assolutamente priva di sciovinismo». Independent «Max Hastings non ci risparmia niente nel ritrarre la sanguinosa ferocia della peggiore guerra che il mondo abbia mai vissuto. Un libro magnifico e ipnotico, dalla prima all’ultima pagina». Sunday Telegraph «Maestoso... Impossibile uscirne senza il senso della vastità della tragedia umana». Daily Telegraph «Nessun’altro libro sulla Seconda guerra mondiale amalgama con tanto successo dati oggettivi, analisi prettamente storiche, toccanti vicende umane e argomenti di strategia militare». Times

''A superb account of journalists, soldiers and the experience of modern battle, written by one of the greatest war reporters of our time'' – Robert Harris, author of An Officer and a Spy ‘Gripping and compulsively readable’ – Saul David, Sunday Telegraph Max Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors. But after a painful false start with the Parachute Regiment, he became a journalist instead. Going to the Wars is his vivid, insightful account of his years as a foreign correspondent. His first taste of danger came at the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, followed by the Biafra and Vietnam Wars. He left Saigon by helicopter from the American Embassy as the city fell to the Khmer Rouge, masqueraded as a game hunter to seek out the secrets of the Rhodesian civil war and was almost shot by marauding Turkish soldiers during the invasion of Cyprus. His greatest moment came at the end of the Falklands War, when he walked alone into Port Stanley, ahead of the British landing force, in determined pursuit of a scoop. ''A first-class piece of reportage. It is filled with tales of derring-do, modestly told'' Jon Swain, The Sunday Times ''His memoirs have . . . honesty, pace and readability'' – Jeremy Paxman

I denne boken om annen verdenskrig presenterer Max Hastings den militære historien, samtidig som han lar vanlige menneskers opplevelser og øyenvitneskildringer være bokens bærebjelke. Her er det de sivile og soldater fra hele verden som beskriver redslene krigen medførte. Hastings har også skrevet boken "Armageddon" (2008).

From one of our finest military historians, a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal consequences. World War II involved tens of millions of soldiers and cost sixty million lives—an average of twenty-seven thousand a day. For thirty-five years, Max Hastings has researched and written about different aspects of the war. Now, for the first time, he gives us a magnificent, single-volume history of the entire war. Through his strikingly detailed stories of everyday people—of soldiers, sailors and airmen; British housewives and Indian peasants; SS killers and the citizens of Leningrad, some of whom resorted to cannibalism during the two-year siege; Japanese suicide pilots and American carrier crews—Hastings provides a singularly intimate portrait of the world at war. He simultaneously traces the major developments—Hitler’s refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union until it was too late; Stalin’s ruthlessness in using his greater population to wear down the German army; Churchill’s leadership in the dark days of 1940 and 1941; Roosevelt’s steady hand before and after the United States entered the war—and puts them in real human context. Hastings also illuminates some of the darker and less explored regions under the war’s penumbra, including the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland, during which the Finns fiercely and surprisingly resisted Stalin’s invading Red Army; and the Bengal famine in 1943 and 1944, when at least one million people died in what turned out to be, in Nehru’s words, “the final epitaph of British rule” in India. Remarkably informed and wide-ranging, Inferno is both elegantly written and cogently argued. Above all, it is a new and essential understanding of one of the greatest and bloodiest events of the twentieth century.

Recommended for viewing on a tablet. From one of our finest historians, a magisterial account of the most terrible event in history – World War II.

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.

Churchill fue el líder de guerra más grande de Gran Bretaña y, hasta 1940, la nación le había seguido de una manera extraordinaria. Pero a partir de entonces —sostiene Max Hastings— hubo una profunda división entre el dirigente y el pueblo británico hasta tal punto que, en 1942, su popularidad tocó fondo en medio de una sucesión ininterrumpida de derrotas en el campo de batalla. Algunos de sus colegas más cercanos se unieron para que abandonase su papel de director de guerra. Hastings ofrece una nítida imagen del primer ministro en el triunfo y la tragedia, como cuando la impulsividad de Churchill amenazó con perder casi todas las tropas desplegadas en el noroeste de Francia. La unidad británica en tiempos de guerra se vio empañada cada vez más por los disturbios de los trabajadores, con muchas huelgas en las minas y las industrias. Hastings proporciona además nuevas perspectivas sobre el dirigente inglés basándose en la opinión de los soldados británicos, los civiles y los periódicos de la época, y condena algunas de sus acciones fallidas, como su intento de promover levantamientos de masas en la Europa ocupada y su "impensable" plan para liberar Polonia, que implicaba una ofensiva aliada contra los rusos. Este libro no sólo supone un retrato íntimo y afectuoso de Churchill como el salvador de Gran Bretaña, sino también un examen implacable del papel que jugó la nación durante la guerra.

A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain’s influence and limit Stalin’s gains. At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless, Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the nation through the bitter war. Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while still managing to capture what he calls Churchill’s “appetite for the fray.” Certain to be a classic, Winston’s War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.

Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering.