Nigel Cawthorne has an undeniably impressive catalogue of military publications to his name. Over the years he has written on everything from famous commanders and elite military units to special forces, military technology, and the Second World War itself. Few popular military historians can match the sheer breadth of his output. I was therefore looking forward to this volume, although I came away feeling that the subject chosen was simply too large to be comfortably contained within a book of just over two hundred pages.
The ambition of the project is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Cawthorne focuses exclusively on the Second World War, selecting a wide range of campaigns and battles from across the global conflict. Even with that narrower focus, the task remains enormous. The war stretched across six years and several continents, encompassing hundreds of major operations. Attempting to cover the most significant of these in a relatively short book inevitably means that every battle receives only a concise treatment.
The selection of battles is also likely to generate debate. Any book claiming to present the greatest battles of the Second World War becomes almost as well known for its omissions as for its inclusions. Every reader will have their own candidates that deserved a place but failed to make the final cut. Some will question the absence of particular campaigns, while others may disagree with the importance attached to those that were included. There is no definitive list of the “greatest” battles, so every author is forced to make difficult choices. Even so, the omissions are impossible to ignore and are almost certain to spark as much discussion as the chapters themselves.
That is not really a criticism of the author’s research so much as of the concept itself. The Second World War is simply too vast a subject to compress into a single volume of this size without sacrificing detail. Every campaign was shaped by geography, logistics, intelligence, command decisions, industrial capacity, morale, and often a fair amount of luck. Entire libraries have been written about battles such as Stalingrad, El Alamein, Midway, Normandy, and the Bulge. Reducing each to a handful of pages means the reader gains an understanding of what happened, but rarely enough space to appreciate why events unfolded as they did or how the commanders reached the decisions that determined the outcome.
Cawthorne writes in a clear and accessible style that keeps the narrative moving. He avoids unnecessary technical language and presents the major events in a way that is easy to follow. Readers who are relatively new to the Second World War will find this an approachable introduction, and the book provides a useful overview of many of the conflict’s defining engagements. It is the sort of volume that may well encourage readers to seek out more specialised studies on the battles that capture their interest.
For readers with a substantial military history library, however, the limitations quickly become apparent. There is little opportunity to examine the operational planning, intelligence failures, logistical problems, or tactical innovations that often made these battles significant. The narrative moves rapidly from one campaign to the next, leaving little room for discussion of competing historical interpretations or the wider strategic context. None of this is unexpected. It is simply the unavoidable consequence of trying to fit so much history into so few pages.
Personally, I would have preferred a different approach. Rather than covering such a large number of battles, I think the book would have been stronger had it examined fewer campaigns in greater depth. Doubling the space devoted to each battle would have allowed the personalities, planning, battlefield decisions, and consequences to emerge more clearly. As it stands, the book succeeds more as a survey than as an analytical history.
That does not diminish its value. It simply defines its audience. If you are looking for a readable introduction to some of the major battles of the Second World War, this book fulfils that role well. It provides a broad overview and serves as a useful starting point for further reading. If, on the other hand, you are seeking detailed campaign analysis or fresh historical interpretation, you will probably find yourself reaching for the more specialised works that occupy several shelves in most military history collections.
Overall, I enjoyed the book for what it is rather than what it could never realistically be. Nigel Cawthorne’s enthusiasm for the subject comes through clearly, and his experience as a popular military writer shows in the book’s readability. The problem is not the writing but the scale of the task. The Second World War is simply too immense to be adequately covered in just over two hundred pages, and that reality inevitably limits the depth that any author can achieve. Like many broad survey histories, it succeeds as an introduction, but it also leaves the reader thinking as much about the battles that were left out as those that made the final selection.
A solid and accessible introduction to the major battles of the Second World War, but one whose breadth inevitably comes at the expense of depth.