Acclaimed military historian John Keegan’s investigation into World War II and the Normandy Invasion
The armies of six nations met on the battlefields of Normandy in what was to be the greatest Allied achievement of World War II. With dramatic, driving power, John Keegan describes the massed armies—American, Canadian, English, French, German, and Polish—at successive stages of the invasion. As he details the strategies of the military engagements, Keegan brilliantly shows how each of the armies reflected its own nation's values and traditions. In a new introduction written especially to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he contemplates the ways the events at the battle of Normandy still reverberate today.
“The best military historian of our generation.” –Tom Clancy
“John Keegan writes about war better than almost anyone in our century.” –The Washington Post Book World
“Very dramatic... Very well done... a book which conjures romance from some very hard fighting.” –A. J. P. Taylor, The New York Review of Books
“The story of this vast, complex, and risky amphibious assault, and the campaign which followed, has been told many times, but never better than by John Keegan.” –The Wall Street Journal
John Keegan's innovative approach to the invasion of Normandy correctly observes that the invasion, while colossal, was merely the beginning of a series of furious battles in northern France, and Keegan accordingly tackles not only the actions of June 6, 1944, but the subsequent Normandy campaigns by five Allied nations and their German opponents. Focusing on specific actions, such as the U.S. 101st Airborne night drop into France and the British infantry battles surrounding the city of Caen, he provides an exciting chronological account of the action in Normandy with considerable depth about tactical decisions.
Keegan is a skilled writer and his battle accounts are stirring. But beyond the vivid battle stories, this is also a book that will engage intellectually those who study battles and tactics, as well as the diplomatic activity that was necessary for the Allied victory in the Second World War's European theater of operations. --Robert McNamara
