Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II

Gerhard L. Weinberg

4.28 · Rating details · 1,252 ratings · 76 reviews

In a new edition featuring a new preface, A World of Arms remains a classic of global history. Widely hailed as a masterpiece, this volume remains the first history of World War II to provide a truly global account of the war that encompassed six continents. Starting with the changes that restructured Europe and its colonies following the First World War, Gerhard Weinberg ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 1208 pages

Published March 28th 2005 by Cambridge University Press (first published January 10th 1994)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about A World at Arms, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about A World at Arms

Lists with This Book

Best World War II History (nonfiction)

568 books — 489 voters

1939 - The War That Had Many Fathers by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof

Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War" by Patrick J. Buchanan

Must Read World War II Military History - European Theater of Operations (nonfiction)

321 books — 126 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.28 ·

Rating details

· 1,252 ratings · 76 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II

Sep 10, 2012 John Nevola rated it it was amazing

A World At Arms is a masterful scholarly work. At nearly 1,000 pages, it takes on the War in all its nuances. From a geographical viewpoint, it deals with events in countries not normally referenced in most works; i.e. Brazil and India. This single volume book also deals with all aspects of this global war including politics, finance, manufacturing, construction, medicine, military strategy and combat operations.

It is an ambitious endeavor, which covers up its very few warts with a deep and inte ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Dec 26, 2012 Loring Wirbel rated it it was amazing

Offering up a single-volume history of WW2 is a daunting task that has sunk many a would-be historian. Do you focus on diplomacy, niche yourself to cover naval battles of the Southwest Pacific, or limit yourself to cartoon images of the ultimate graphic novel? Weinberg took the unusual approach of going big and broad. There's no real history of the Nazi party, Japanese bushido, or the Holocaust here. Instead, he uses a thousand-some-odd pages to discuss how the war looked from every odd corner o Offering up a single-volume history of WW2 is a daunting task that has sunk many a would-be historian. Do you focus on diplomacy, niche yourself to cover naval battles of the Southwest Pacific, or limit yourself to cartoon images of the ultimate graphic novel? Weinberg took the unusual approach of going big and broad. There's no real history of the Nazi party, Japanese bushido, or the Holocaust here. Instead, he uses a thousand-some-odd pages to discuss how the war looked from every odd corner of the Earth.

As a result, we get the history of coups in Romania and Hungary, of the discussion of Madagascar as a possible Jewish concentration camp, of the grueling battles in northern Burma and Annam provinces in India. Weinberg treats the war as a global phenomenon, and gives us a view from the emerging nations of the Third World, and from the smaller nations of Europe.

Obviously, this means there is no detailed discussion of diplomacy or battle strategy, but we do get an integrated view of how political expectations and technology evolved in the period between the wars, to give a sense of how the last gasp of authoritarian imperialism came close to overtaking the planet, but was nevertheless discredited from the get-go. For the most part, Weinberg does his job well.

I am giving this five stars because the task seemed so impossible while the end result is satisfying, but that does not mean the book is free of faults. Weinberg is the type of historian-geek who loves to enumerate everything, and sometimes gives us numbers within numbers - three reasons the Danes felt they had to cave in to the Nazis, with four causes listed for the second of those reasons, etc. etc. If you try to read this book in a disinterested moment, you might get lost if the outline was not scrawled across a blackboard somewhere.

Still, this is a classic "big picture" work - not merely for trying to understand the Axis powers and the allied response, but for grasping how the former colonies responded to the creation of the United Nations, how new weapon technologies allowed a blanket-bombing philosophy that almost amounted to a "genocide by consensus" (not just nuclear weapons, but the strategic bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo). Those who want to adamantly say "Never again" had better understand how evil makes itself manifest on the planet. Despite his scholarly tone, Weinberg is unafraid of using a word like "evil" when it is appropriate to do so. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2018 Ekul rated it liked it

Shelves: history, geo-global, temp-modern-late, comprehensive-exams

This book really should be worth four stars, but the treatment of the Pacific War is shoddy in comparison to the amount of depth given to the war in Europe, so I knocked off a star for that purpose.

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

May 22, 2013 Avempace rated it it was amazing

The most illuminating single volume history of WWII, and one of the very best books on the war, period. It has incisive insights that reemerge in other great books on the war, such as Adam Tooze's the Wages of Destruction: the ultimately futile and vastly destructive and genocidal attempt of a middling power, such as Germany was, to challenge the changing global balance of power vis a vis the US (and USSR). It spends time on fronts and issues that were frequently ignored at the time when the boo The most illuminating single volume history of WWII, and one of the very best books on the war, period. It has incisive insights that reemerge in other great books on the war, such as Adam Tooze's the Wages of Destruction: the ultimately futile and vastly destructive and genocidal attempt of a middling power, such as Germany was, to challenge the changing global balance of power vis a vis the US (and USSR). It spends time on fronts and issues that were frequently ignored at the time when the book was first published, especially as relates to the Eastern front as well as other less known areas of the conflict. Political, diplomatic, economic as well as military matters are weaved into one seamless tapestry. You read about the great battles of the war, and then learn about the critical battles that were not waged, such as the would have been conquest of Madagascar by the Japanese that never was. One learns about the industrial might harnessed by the allies in service of the war effort, and realizes the untenable position of the axis powers.

An exercise typical of Weinberg, and one of my very favorite sections of the book, relates to his analysis of the Russian counterattack in the titanic 1941 battle of Moscow, perhaps the most decisive moment of the entire war. He takes the impatient reader on a long detour that details the political and diplomatic background of that culminating event, before finally turning to the unfolding attack itself. This exercise, repeated in different forms throughout the book, impresses on the reader the global nature of the conflict. The fact is that the military and political leaderships of the respective countries saw it as such: a global conflict, with events in one theater of war impacting others in real time.

For the military enthusiasts, this is not a tactical military history of the war, although the military struggles are naturally addressed and do form the center of gravity of the narrative. Such readers would be better served by books that deal with military events in individual theaters of conflict. For those seeking a deeper understanding of the war, the rationale for its unfolding events and the inevitability of its outcome, they can hardly be better served by another tome on the subject. Very highly recommended. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 05, 2016 Sandy rated it it was ok

This is supposed to be a classic treatment, but I only ground through about half of it before I gave up. Just too dry, and somehow you don't get a feel for events. I'm liking the "Inferno" book much better. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 20, 2011 Albion College rated it it was amazing

This is an incredibly thorough, global look at the entire timeline of World War II, from what led to the war through its conclusion.

There are several things which are really excellent about this book. The first is that the author looks through tremendous volumes of (often primary) source material to discuss the reasons that actors made decisions--that is, based on what they did or didn't know at the time their decisions were made. In particular, he focuses on how Stalin's understanding of Hitle ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 05, 2007 Simon rated it really liked it

Reading the old edition, not the new one. Superb ability to reflect the global nature of WWII and illustrate the way various theatres affected other ones. Not an in-depth military history (will have to read Lidell Hart for that) but very strong as a diplomatic history and as an economic one (at least to the extent necessary to provide understanding of diplomatic motivations.) Does not hide from the issue of atrocities and genocide, and skilfully weaves them into the overall narrative. Devotes a ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 02, 2020 S. rated it liked it

Shelves: hookah, cheshire

possibly deserves the 4/5 but the market of world war II literature is saturated... with classics. take Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 5/5, The German War: A Nation Under Arms 4/5, The Third Reich at War 4/5, The Second World War 4/5. spend your hard earned brass on these...

Weinberg's tome is lengthy. it is, to a slight degree, marred by multiple constant in-paragraph reference "and this will be discussed further shortly". style was fine, work was competent, but really the only problem is ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 17, 2012 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: the-second-world-war, favorites

Over 1,000 pages and around 100 footnotes per chapter, one of the experts in English who writes on German foreign policy and German diplomatic history wrote this book. A juggernaut of academic work produced this book that could be easily weaponized by dropping it one someone; yes it is large! Do not fear its size, only is erudition, and the excellent connections it makes between diverse theaters. Now, it is weak on operations, tactical and the military analytically areas; however, one cannot acc ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Aug 14, 2010 Eric Suter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An interesting dissection of the political and military drama of WWII, with its focus more sharply on the political. I found the most interesting aspect of the book to be its careful analysis of the periphery combatants including Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc., their motivations, desires, and, ultimately, disasters. At the outset, I had hoped the book would focus more closely on the strategic and tactical aspects of the military engagements but Weinberg rarely delves into those issues ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 08, 2019 Barry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I was considering what to say about this book. What comes after magisterial? What is more comprehensive and exhaustive than comprehensive and exhaustive.
In close to fifty years of reading history, especially military history, I have never felt such a sense of awe at the scholarship in a book. Not only is the scholarship sound, the inferences and conclusions are nuanced and subtle while remaining clear and cogent. The book is not just well-written but elegantly written.
We all sometimes joke about ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jun 09, 2017 Shane Clancy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Ambitious in scope, lacking in heart

In A World At Arms, Weinberg certainly accomplishes his objective to write a truly global history of World War II. This book is ambitiously broad in scope, and is novel in illuminating theaters of the war that are often passed over or ignored in the context of the most major events and developments. While adequately covering the epic conflict at the Eastern Front and the Allied battle against the Axis in North Africa and subsequently Western Europe, there is a ...more

flag Like · see review

Nov 30, 2020 M. rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, bought-5-years, own-read, age-1976-present, rated-yes, non-fiction, own-yes, avglessthan43, 15p99k-30-ratings, nf-th-history-biography

A first rate piece of scholarship and an excellent condensation of six years of diplomatic and military command history into ~900 pages of narrative text.

A World At Arms filled in several gaps in my knowledge, particularly of the war between the Allies and Japan. The importance of places such as Port Moresby and Rabaul was finally made clear to me.

The bibliographic essay and notes are first rate. The book is definitely a keeper, and will be my key reference point on the war as I dig into detail ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 28, 2017 Frederick rated it really liked it

Very good. Very clear. The writing is smooth and without the clunkiness of so much scholarly work. This is essential for the student of World War II and will not only greatly improve knowledge but also understanding of the military side of things. The author has no ax to grind, no agenda to forward. He simply provides an excellent historical source.

flag Like · see review

Oct 01, 2019 Bill Taylor rated it really liked it

The book is massive and a slog to get through. Took two months of small bites to read it. I rate it high because of the impressive scholarship behind it, the stunning scope of what it covers, and the periodic insights proffered by the author. It is hardly a “page turner” and not for the novice to undertake. However reading this very long and often dry study is worth the journey.

flag Like · see review

Jan 10, 2019 Alex Miller rated it liked it

A thorough political and diplomatic history of World War II; descriptions of the actual fighting are truncated. Definitely not a book you can read for fun and you have to bring some knowledge of World War II to the table.

flag Like · see review

Feb 06, 2019 Kiko Lobo rated it it was amazing

A hot cup of coffee, blanket over me and I'm curled up reading this right here. Great book about the second great war! ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 11, 2021 Rok Šabjan rated it really liked it

Great book, loved strategic insights and inter-connectedness of events all around the globe. A bit difficult to work through, quite a scholarly work.

flag Like · see review

Aug 26, 2021 Prashant gupta rated it it was amazing

A masterpiece for World war -2. The author provides information without deviating from the facts.

flag Like · see review

Mar 09, 2017 Natasha rated it really liked it

I'm about 400 pages in this book and had to put it down. The content was chock full of exquisite detail and that became a bit too much to bare. The content was very dry and obsessive over every single detail that this book became laborious to read. It also was all over the place chronologically. I highly appreciate the impeccable details in this book but wanted something w/a bit more personality and maybe not as OCD W/information. It was very difficult to find a book that compares to this one. B ...more

flag Like · see review

Feb 20, 2017 Saad Mohammad rated it it was amazing

This book is a very good comprehensive overview of the struggle as a whole; it won't go into minute details for each specific battle thus if you're looking for more information about the North African campaign or the Russian/German conflict you should probably look for books within that sub genre. What this book is great at, is going in a temporal fashion forwards giving you the events occurring around the world at the same time - which gives the reader a great sense of the chaos and events that ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 12, 2015 Jim Martin rated it it was amazing

Weinberg has produced a monumental work which concentrates mainly on the high diplomatic and strategic aspects of the war. Individuals who only want to read blow by blow accounts of specific campaigns will likely not find this book to be very rewarding. I would encourage anyone who is seriously reading the work to also read the notes, which are gathered at the end of the work, at the same time as some matters are only fully covered in the notes. The bibliography, while now dated, is also well wo Weinberg has produced a monumental work which concentrates mainly on the high diplomatic and strategic aspects of the war. Individuals who only want to read blow by blow accounts of specific campaigns will likely not find this book to be very rewarding. I would encourage anyone who is seriously reading the work to also read the notes, which are gathered at the end of the work, at the same time as some matters are only fully covered in the notes. The bibliography, while now dated, is also well worth reading, especially his comments concerning the official documents produced during the war by the major and minor powers. As a librarian I appreciated his call for the preservation of the original source materials before they are lost to future scholars due to the ravages of time.

Some reviewers have pointed out that Weinberg has a tendency to explain certain historical ambiguities as referring to the incomplete nature of the historical record due to the still closed nature of many of the archives in Russia. This cannot be avoided, but it also points out one problem with Weinberg's presentation, in my opinion, which is that he sometimes is repetitive; he almost never misses the opportunity to slam writers such as David Irving who maintain that Hitler was willing to cut a deal with England by obliquely referring to them when discussing the V weapons program. Still the work is highly readable, but also authoritative and even has instances of rare humor, such as when we are told the story of the German band leader, captured at Stalingrad, who ended an early bandmaster in the Chinese PLA.

Weinberg is strongest in his coverage of the European campaigns although he presents a good overview of how the European, Pacific, South Asian and Near Eastern campaigns interacted especially during the crucial period from May of 1942 through July of 1943. At the beginning of this period the Axis powers had their one chance to coordinate strategies in an attempt to geographically divide the Allies. This chance was not taken since the Germans decided to pursue the Stalingrad and Caucases campaign instead of securing the Central Mediterranean Sea and driving into the Middle East, and the Japanese decided to move against Midway and try to cut off Australia instead of driving into the Indian Ocean. By the end of July, 1943 the Anglo-American allies and the Soviets would begin to exert simultaneous pressure on Germany so that any attempt by that power to
defeat its enemies would be lost.

A minor quibble, the work could have profited by being read by weapons subject matter experts. U-236 is not used to produce the fissile U-235. Also, although the Royal Navy did some preliminary work on the concept of angled deck carriers during the course of the war the first such experiment was not carried out until after its end. These are minor errors and do not detract from the overall value of the work. ...more

flag Like · see review

Sep 19, 2018 Hank Hoeft rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II certainly lives up to its subtitle. This is a tour de force, one historian's attempt to swim the ocean of literature and primary sources on World War II and write a comprehensive history of the greatest human conflagration in history, that is impressive in its 920 pages of small text, a 24-page bibliographic essay, 180 pages of notes, and 29 pages of maps. Dr. Weinberg not only chronicles the major battles and campaigns of the war, but also ties A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II certainly lives up to its subtitle. This is a tour de force, one historian's attempt to swim the ocean of literature and primary sources on World War II and write a comprehensive history of the greatest human conflagration in history, that is impressive in its 920 pages of small text, a 24-page bibliographic essay, 180 pages of notes, and 29 pages of maps. Dr. Weinberg not only chronicles the major battles and campaigns of the war, but also ties together the political and strategic thinking that was behind the fighting, and does an admirable job of showing the interconnectedness of all these events--for example, how fighting in the Aleutian Islands affected the campaigning in North Africa.

Of course, even with such a voluminous account of the war, the global and top-down perspective that focuses on world leaders, generals, and admirals rather than the individual soldier or sailor, means that there is no room for minute details and individual stories. But there are hundreds of books on individual battles and experiences of individuals. What makes Gerhard's history valuable is his intent to show how all these global events fit together into one narrative.

About the only criticism that occurred to me as I read A World at Arms is that I needed to read several chapters before I got used to Dr. Gerhard's writing style. (Dr. Gerhard was born in Germany--maybe that explains his Germanic sentence structure.) At first his writing struck me as somewhat dry--not as readable as, say Shelby Foote's history of the American Civil War--but then I got caught up in the book's sweeping scope, or else I just adjusted to the cadence of his style.

This is an excellent one-volume education in World War II--what happened, why it happened, and how it all fit together as one colossal event. I'm not sure it would be a good volume for someone who doesn't know a lot about World War II to start with--I think a reader has to already be familiar with the broad events of the War to get the most out of A World at Arms --but I do think it should be included in a list of books on World War II that are considered essential to understanding it. ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 30, 2009 Themistocles rated it did not like it

Shelves: world-war-ii, history

This book is breathtaking. I mean, LITERALLY breath-taking. Just try to read it in bed, propped on your chest: I bet you'll start wheezing soon enough. Who prints a single-volume 2kg, 1200-page long book? For the love of god...

Anyway. This was a comment about the physical format, not the content.

...which is not much better, unfortunately; just as stiff and difficult to handle as the book itself. Sure, it was not written yesterday but rather 20 years ago, but 1994 still counts as "modern day" in ...more

flag Like · see review

Feb 24, 2015 Erwin rated it it was amazing

For someone not particularly knowledgable about World War history but very fascinated with history/war in general, this is a great book that kept me hooked till the end. Since many historical aspects of the world wars (especially the diplomatic and strategic aspects) are not set in stone but open to interpretation, some opinions of the author are (apparently) debatable. However, as a reader who is eager to learn, it's great to have an author who is not shy about stating his opinions, since this ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 26, 2015 Gregory rated it it was amazing

Excellent. The author provides insight into May questions I had long had as well as asking - and answering - many questions I had not thought of, Including:

Why didn't Spain enter the war on the Axis side, considering that the Spanish Civil War was considered the "Dress Rehearsal" for W W II?

Why were Japan and Russia neutral towards each other until the War's closing days?

Why didn't the USA supply Russia via Kamchatka (we did).

What was Finland's role in the war, and how did Finland relate to Naz ...more

flag Like · see review

Dec 22, 2014 Chandan Shivaramu rated it it was amazing

I believe the author takes a unique approach in making sure readers are educated about all angles for a WW2 event in this book.
Its like story telling in "memento" way.. its like you are in a lecture hall and get to hear all sides of a conflict.. in a non-flinching way .. at times Weinburg's complex sentences needs frequent re-reading just to grasp the gist of it..sometimes, he skims few of the engagements to describe it in full detail later..
all in all, i felt this is one of the most engaging, e ...more

flag Like · see review

Sep 14, 2015 Balaji rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ww2

Its a special way to end the year 2015 as I complete this great book. Its difficult to condense the happenings of 6 eventful years into a book of about a 1000 pages, but the book covers most of them quite well. Details of the treaty of Versailles that ended World War I and the Munich agreement were some of the topics which I felt should have been covered better. On the contrary, there was elaborate explanation regarding the fighting, and since I am not aware of the geography of places like Russi ...more

flag Like · see review

Jul 24, 2012 Stanley Hopcroft rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Valuable at least for the discussion of the origin of the second world war and the colour of the new order.

Weinberg asserts, convincingly from my point of view, is that the war was seen by the Axis as solution to various problems involving their rightful place, control if not occupation of countries populated by less worthy people, and the transformation of their own societies into thoroughly materialistic and warrior casts.

Exposing infants on Mt Parnussus ? Far too inefficient for the Third Rei ...more

flag Like · see review

Mar 19, 2015 Abhishek rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ww-2

I cannot suggest a book that accounts the world war 2 netter than this.
This work is remarkable and proves the statement "history is always written by the victors" wrong. Gerhard Weinberg is German.
The work is so remarkable and accurate as gives he the references of all his claims as lot of world war 2 documents were made public by western countries. If you want an unadulterated book to read the accounts of WW 2 this is the one.
Author accounts here the decision making process of both allied and a ...more

flag Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Better 1 Volume WW2 History Book	1	4	Mar 05, 2017 03:10PM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

History

193 users

War > World War II

51 users

Military > Military History

32 users

Nonfiction

32 users

War

25 users

War > Military Fiction

15 users

History > World History

8 users

Politics

6 users

History > European History

5 users

Reference

4 users

See top shelves…

About Gerhard L. Weinberg

Gerhard L. Weinberg

21 followers

Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of World War II. Weinberg currently is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a member of the history faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1974