Books in Brief: Why the Allies Won

Why the Allies Won, by Richard Overy (Norton, 396 pp., $22.95)

THE recent flood of books on virtually every aspect of the Second World War has restored our understanding of why we fought (i.e., to beat the Axis lest we lose our freedom—a self-evident proposition in 1945, which seems to have become obscured in subsequent decades). Among these efforts, Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won warrants special attention. In a brilliant analysis of the many and varied “fronts” that made up World War II, Overy decisively discredits one of the oldest revisionist canards—that Allied victory was inevitable because wars of conquest are “obsolete” in the modern age. As Overy shows, the Allies won only because they mastered the modern art of mass warfare better than their opponents did. In trenchant analyses of the Battle of the Seas, the War for the Air, the “December 8 War” in Russia, the Battle of Production, and other key fronts, Overy demonstrates how the Axis could have emerged the winner—and in some cases, nearly did. One caution: Overy’s well-written book is not for the novice; if you need to be told who Admiral Donitz was, this isn’t the book for you.

MK

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Michael King

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Why the Allies Won, by Richard Overy (Norton, 396 pp., $22.95)

THE recent flood of books on virtually every aspect of the Second World War has restored our understanding of why we fought (i.e., to beat the Axis lest we lose our freedom—a self-evident proposition in 1945, which seems to have become obscured in subsequent decades). Among these efforts, Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won warrants special attention. In a brilliant analysis of the many and varied “fronts” that made up World War II, Overy decisively discredits one of the oldest revisionist canards—that Allied victory was inevitable because wars of conquest are “obsolete” in the modern age. As Overy shows, the Allies won only because they mastered the modern art of mass warfare better than their opponents did. In trenchant analyses of the Battle of the Seas, the War for the Air, the “December 8 War” in Russia, the Battle of Production, and other key fronts, Overy demonstrates how the Axis could have emerged the winner—and in some cases, nearly did. One caution: Overy’s well-written book is not for the novice; if you need to be told who Admiral Donitz was, this isn’t the book for you.