The best single-volume account of the conflict since it first appeared in 1972 ...Not the least of this splendid volume's merits is its comprehensive and moving account of the terrible costs of the war in material destruction and suffering'Brian Bond and Michael Dockrill.

THE years 1870 to 1945 were the period in which Europe feared Germany.Before that, it was France, afterwards the Soviet Union. In this perspectivethe Second World War is the end of an era.

In this period much was lost. The European states system disintegrated.One international economic order foundered and was not replaced byanother. Concurrently with these two great dislocations Europe's primacyin the world disappeared. Given the centrality of Germany - geographicaland dynamic - much retrospective attention has been focused on Germanresponsibility, even (which is not the same thing) culpability, in this tideof events.

....

List of Maps.

Acknowledgements

Foreword to the Second Edition

The Western Hemisphere

Introduction to the Second Edition

              Part I

  THE SOURCES OF WAR IN EUROPE

The Background

HITLER

GERMANY

EUROPE

From Versailles to the Soldiers Oath: 1919-34

The Futile Opposition: 1934-8

Munich... Prague... Warsaw

              Part II

      HITLER'S WARS: 1939-41

From Poland to the North Cape

The Fall of France

The Battle of Britain

The Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East

Barbarossa

War with America

            Part III

   EUROPE UNDER THE NAZIS

The New Order

Exploitation

Resistance

Revolution in the South-East

France

            Part IV

       THE MIDDLE GAME

The Muster against the Axis

The Clearing of North Africa

The End of Fascism

Hitler's German Enemies

Great Britain at War

            Part V

 THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY: 1942-5

The Battle of the Seas

The Victory of the USSR

Mass Bombing

The Western Fronts

Disintegration

          EPILOGUE

The Greater East Asia and Pacific Conflict

             Part I

       ASIAN CONFLICT

China and Japan

Japan in International Affairs

The Japan Which Struck

The China Which Was Struck At

Naval Conflicts by Methods Short of War

The Great Manchurian Adventure

China: Internal Revolutions and Foreign Policy

Japan: Internal Revolutions and Foreign Policy

The War Resumed: The Outbreak of the China Incident

International Alarums: Japan and Appeasement

India and the Conflict

The Magnetic North

              Part II

          OCEAN CLASH

The War Changes its Character

The Negotiation preceding War

The Bombardment of Pearl Harbor

The War after Pearl Harbor

              Part III

      THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

Japan's Hundred Days

HONG KONG

THE PHILIPPINES

MALAYA

BORNEO

BURMA

THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES

The Storm in India

Four Loose Threads

JIMMY DOOLITTLE'S AIR RAID AND ITS AFTERMATH

INDIAN OCEAN-EXCURSIONS LIMITED

THE CORAL SEA

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

MacArthur and Nimitz in the Pacific

              Part IV

       THE DEFEAT OF JAPAN

Mid-1943

Two Indian Armies

China 1942-3

Twilight

The End

              EPILOGUE

Chronological Skeleton

Bibliographies

Maps

Index: The Western Hemisphere

Index: The Greater East Asia and Pacific Conflict