A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

World War I evokes images of the trenches: grinding, halting battles that sacrificed millions of lives for no territory or visible gain. Yet the first months of the war, from the German invasion of Belgium to the Marne to Ypres, were utterly different, full of advances and retreats, tactical maneuvering, and significant gains and losses.

In Catastrophe 1914, acclaimed military historian Max Hastings re-creates this dramatic year, from the diplomatic crisis to the fighting in Belgium and France on the western front, and Serbia and Galicia to the east, and shows why it was inevitable that this first war among modern industrial nations could not produce a decisive victory. Throughout we encounter high officials and average soldiers, as well as civilians on the home front, giving us a vivid portrait of how a continent became embroiled in a war that would change everything.

Trincee, fango, filo spinato, corpi di giovani soldati martoriati da mitragliatrici, baionetta e gas tossici: così ci raffiguriamo oggi la Prima guerra mondiale. Ma 'che cosa è successo davvero, in Europa, nel 1914?' Possibile che tra i ventotto paesi coinvolti la Germania sia stata l'unica colpevole? Per rispondere a queste domande, e chiarire le cause di un conflitto che, agli occhi degli storici, appaiono più intricate di quelle della Seconda guerra mondiale, Max Hastings corregge le inesattezze perpetuate durante quest'ultimo secolo e fornisce al lettore una nuova, suggestiva chiave interpretativa. Sapevate, ad esempio, che quasi tutte le nazioni, per scagionarsi, distrussero la documentazione che riguardava il proprio ruolo nella guerra o ne crearono una fittizia? Se pressoché tutti gli studi sulla Grande Guerra si sono limitati a descrivere 'il convulso scenario politico e diplomatico o a fare una cronaca degli eventi militari', 'Catastrofe' fa entrambe le cose. Da un lato, ricostruisce le cause che dalla 'sensazione che stia per succedere qualcosa', portarono all'assassinio dell'arciduca Francesco Ferdinando e, dall'altro, servendosi di una quantità sterminata di testimonianze e resoconti, descrive la sontuosa marcia dell'esercito francese accompagnato da musicisti e sbandieratori attraverso le campagne assolate; e, ancora, ci parla delle poco indagate campagne in Serbia, degli inverni nella Russia dell'Est, e delle rischiose spedizioni sulle coste della Galizia.

From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: from the breakdown of diplomacy to the dramatic battles that occurred before the war bogged down in the trenches.

World War I immediately evokes images of the trenches: grinding, halting battles that sacrificed millions of lives for no territory or visible gain. Yet the first months of the war, from the German invasion of Belgium to the Marne to Ypres, were utterly different, full of advances and retreats, tactical maneuvering, and significant gains and losses. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings re-creates this dramatic year, from the diplomatic crisis to the fighting in Belgium and France on the western front, and Serbia and Galicia to the east. He gives vivid accounts of the battles and frank assessments of generals and political leaders, and shows why it was inevitable that this first war among modern industrial nations could not produce a decisive victory, resulting in a war of attrition. Throughout we encounter high officials and average soldiers, as well as civilians on the home front, giving us a vivid portrait of how a continent became embroiled in a war that would change everything.

A history of the early phase of World War I traces the breakdown of diplomatic measures and the dramatic battles that occurred throughout the first year.

A history of the early phase of World War I traces the breakdown of diplomatic measures and the dramatic battles that occurred throughout the first year.

The author, a distinguished military historian, recounts the sequence of military events that formed the war and, based on personal accounts and interviews with hundreds of veterans, vividly depicts combat action.

Winner of the Pritzker Prize for Military History
A New York Times Notable Book

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.

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 conflict. 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—Hastings provides a singularly intimate portrait of the world at war. 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.

Presents a history of World War II, traces the major developments from Hitler's refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union to Stalin's ruthlessness in his fight to wear down the German army, and shows the impact of war on the people.

Presents a history of World War II, traces the major developments from Hitler's refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union to Stalin's ruthlessness in his fight to wear down the German army, and shows the impact of war on the people.

Presents a history of World War II, traces the major developments from Hitler's refusal to retreat from the Soviet Union to Stalin's ruthlessness in his fight to wear down the German army, and shows the impact of war on the people.

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.

Churchill got many little things wrong, but he was right, crucially so, on major points of Allied strategy. When the Americans joined the war, they were hot to invade France. Churchill dissuaded Roosevelt from mounting what, in 1942 or 1943, would have been a suicide mission, and redirected Allied attention to North Africa and Italy. The Mediterranean campaign bore mixed results, but Churchill's instincts were correct. There is a poignant ambiguity about Hastings's title; after 1943, the conflict was anything but Winston's war. For a time, Churchill alone had embodied the West's hopes; but as the war turned in the Allies' favor, he was shunted aside. Roosevelt ignored his advice, and, to Churchill's horror, signed off on Stalin's subjugation of Eastern Europe. In these last years, we see a much diminished war leader. Churchill deserves our admiration; first, however, as Hastings wisely insists, "history must take Churchill as a whole."--From publisher description.

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.

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan's utter devastation—was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces.

In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws incisive portraits of MacArthur, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and other key figures of the war in the East. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors caught in the bloodiest of campaigns.

With its piercing and convincing analysis, Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.