World At War - Story of World War II

by Nigel Cawthorne

World War II - one of the most defining periods of the 20th century, and the costliest war in terms of human life. World At War's comprehensive account portrays the epic scale of combat while capturing personal courage and sacrifice.

Complete with official strategic maps, soldiers' letters home and hundreds of striking photographs, this chronological, compelling and authoritative book reveals the conflict and upheaval, explaining how the war was won around the world.

304 pages, Hardback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Nigel Cawthorne is an Anglo-American writer of fiction and non-fiction, and an editor. He has written more than 80 books on a wide range of subjects and has contributed to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph Daily Mail and The New York Times. He has appeared on television and BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Many of Nigel Cawthorne's books are compilations of popular history, without footnotes, references or bibliographies. His own web site refers to a description of his home as a "book-writing factory" and says, "More than half my books were commissioned by publishers and packagers for a flat fee or for a for a reduced royalty".

One of his most notable works was Taking Back My Name, an autobiography of Ike Turner, with whom he spent a number of weeks working with him on, taking up residence in Turner's house. The book caused much controversy, resulting in court cases for three years following its release.

Cawthorne currently lives in Bloomsbury, London with his girlfriend and son, Colin (born 1982).

Reviews

[Apratim Mukherjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

World War 2 was one of the bloodiest wars.It changed the course of our history and has undoubtedly shaped the world today we live in.Coming to the book, it has some untold stories but the text is as boring as lectures in the history classes of schools/colleges.Further ,there are lot of 'military terms' which add to the boredom.
But on the positive side,the book has a large number of rare wartime photographs.Considering its flaws,I will rate the book as average i.e. three star

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up at a local used book store and really enjoyed it. It was a great chronological look at the history of World War II, with great visuals supplied by photographs and maps and pretty decent in-depth coverage of text compared to some of the longer histories I’ve read. Overall I think it is a good total package for a small, single-volume look at the war, and a good resource for someone just looking to get into it and maybe hoping to find certain areas to delve deeper into later.

[Xylene Qien]

okayy.. this is okayy i guess..
i picked this up because my history teacher is such a good storyteller with expanse knowledge on history and i decided to know more about this topic.

(know, not learn. my school life for 11 years lol)

so this is about ww2, i know it left out some important triggers or just simply wrote out the events in a single basic sentence,
but at least it provided me to know basically the whole map and image of the war

and make me feel that human history is a long chain of connecting events in a spidery web shape.

i dont know how to rate this book.
i view it as a minor encyclopedish book and as a source of basic historical knowledge.

especially after finding this author writing other books about sex life of some tyrants or celebrities or whatnots, i dont even want to rate it anymore.

okayy i guess this sex or lust or whatever issue is rough and weird to me.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 3 out of 5]

World at War by Nigel Cawthorne is a brief summary of the events of World War II, supported by appropriate photos. When I say brief, I mean more like an overview – you can’t provide a comprehensive coverage of any or all of that complex conflict in a book that is shorter than the average Harry Potter novel. This means that many areas are neglected, or even omitted. In addition, the photos whilst an excellent selection are poorly captioned – some captions are pointless and a few are misleading or totally incorrect. Nevertheless, a brief overview that achieves its purpose.

[Jody · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise overview of the war.

[Alex Cork · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book for initial study of the war. Not overly detailed. Has a lot of gaps. Nonetheless, enjoyable read for WWII newcomers.

[Charissa Ty · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's brief enough for me to understand what happened. So saddened by the amount of lives lost. That's just one too many.