The Me 262 was the first of its kind, the first jet-powered aircraft. Although conceived before the war, with the initial plans being drawn in April 1939, the Stormbird was beset with technological (particularly the revolutionary engines) and...
No single weapon has spread so much raw power to so many people in so little time—and had such a devastating effect—as the AK-47 assault rifle. This book examines the legacy of this world-changing weapon, from its creation as means of fighting...
In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of...
The Tank Killers is the story of the American Tank Destroyer Force in North Africa, Italy, and the European Theater during World War II. The tank destroyer (TD) was a bold—if some would say flawed—answer to the challenge posed by the seemingly...
In the final months of the Second World War in 1945, the German Army was in full retreat on both its Western and Eastern Fronts. British and American troops were poised to cross the River Rhine in the west, while in the East the vast Soviet war...
A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Young, tough, patriotic, but also...
Operation Berlin, the Soviet offensive launched on 16 April, 1945, by Marshals Zhukov and Koniev, isolated the German Ninth Army and tens of thousands of refugees in the Spreewald ‘pocket’, south-east of Berlin. Stalin ordered its encirclement...
Alois Dwenger, writing from the front in May of 1942, complained that people forgot “the actions of simple soldiers…. I believe that true heroism lies in bearing this dreadful everyday life.”
In exploring the reality of the Landser, the...
In late 1917, the Russians, despite the revolution, were still willing to continue the war against Germany. This is an account of Operation Albion, the highly successful sea borne operation launched by the Germans to change their minds. The...
Tells the story of one of the pivotal events of the WWII – the struggle between British and German air forces in the late summer and autumn of 1940. This book answers such questions as: how close did Britain really come to invasion; what were...