World War II: The Autobiography

by Mel Smith

The history of WWII from September 1939 to VJ day through the personal accounts of soldiers, speeches, diaries and official records. The War as told by those who were there..How will the Second World War be remembered? Not as a series of strategic battles but as a dramatic turning point in world history, recorded through the personal accounts, diaries, and speeches of those that were there. World War the Autobiography places centre stage the individual accounts of over 200 people who saw events unfolding before their from the first stirrings of Nazi aggression, to the phoney war and the Blitzkrieg; from the frozen wastes of the Eastern Front to life under the threat of the Blitz in London. This autobiography offers a panoramic view of the conflict and with entries from all the major figures of the war, including Churchill, Field Marshal Montgomery, Hitler, Stalin and Rommel, as well as accounts from the men and women on the front line, the home front and those unfortunate to be prisoners of war, from all sides of the conflict.

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction, War, Military History

604 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I am aware that WWII is not a person and thus cannot have written its own biography :D

This is a collection of over 200 texts written during the war by people who experienced it firsthand. There is everything, from official public addresses by politicians to soldiers’ diary entries, from newspaper articles written by war correspondents to letters sent home by prisoners of war. We see both sides, Allies and Axis, and all theatres, Africa, Europe, Russia, Pacific...

This was not what I’d call a fun read, but I learned so much I didn’t know about the war! If you’re like me and you read a lot of historical fiction set in those years, you’ll feel like you know all about the Holocaust, the Blitz, Dunkirk and Normandy. But I realized I basically knew nothing about the war in Northern Africa, for example, or the U-boats. It was fascinating to read about all of that from so many diverse points of view, and not romanticized as it would have been in a novel.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading about World War II entirely through the perspectives of people who were there. Because these are real people’s accounts, there’s bias and inaccuracy, but it’s all the more real for that, and brings home some of the horror of the war.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay book. It seemed as though the War in the Pacific was not covered as well as the other theaters of battle. I had also already read a number of the books that entries were taken from.