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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORYSHORTLISTED FOR THE GILDER LEHRMAN PRIZE FOR MILITARY HISTORY'A masterpiece. It puts all previous single-volume works of the conflict in the shade' Saul David, The TimesA bold new approach to the Second World War from one of Britain's foremost military historiansRichard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins to recast the way in which we view the Second World War and its origins and aftermath. He argues that this was the 'great imperial war', a violent end to almost a century of global imperial expansion which reached its peak in the ambitions of Italy, Germany and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s, before descending into the largest and costliest war in human history and the end, after 1945, of all territorial empires.How war on a huge scale was fought, supplied, paid for, supported by mass mobilization and morally justified forms the heart of this new account. Above all, Overy explains the bitter cost for those involved in fighting, and the exceptional level of crime and atrocity that marked these imperial projects, the war and its aftermath. This war was as deadly for civilians as it was for the military, a war to the death over the future of the global order.Blood and Ruins is a masterpiece from of one of the most renowned historians of the Second World War, which will compel us to view the war in novel and unfamiliar ways. Thought-provoking, original and challenging, Blood and Ruins sets out to understand the war anew

A history of warfare distilled into 100 momentous battles - epic moments that have shaped our world. From the earliest recorded skirmishes of the ancient world to the computerized conflicts of today, renowned military historian Richard Overy dramatically brings to life the sights and sounds of the most significant battles in world history: the flash of steel, the thunder of guns, the shrieks of the dying, and the strange, eerie calm that descends on the bloodstained battlefield when the fighting is done. Each of the 100 battles featured in the book - from the Fall of Troy to Operation Desert Storm - shows how the nature of armed combat has changed as technology, strategy and tactics have evolved over time. Yet, equally strikingly, the outcome of almost all the battles across the ages have been decided by the same mix of leadership, courage, deception, innovation and, time and again, a moment of good fortune. Rather than arranged chronologically, the battles are organized under these different themes to reveal surprising connections across centuries and cultures. In Richard Overy's own words, 'Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history: messy, bloody and real.' Whatever else has changed over the last few millennia, that much remains the same

Prologue: Bombing Bulgaria -- The sorcerer's apprentice: Bomber Command 1939-42 -- The Casablanca Offensive: the Allies over Germany 1943-4 -- The "Battle of Germany", 1944-5 -- The logic of total war: German society under the bombs -- Italy: The war of bombs and words -- Bombing friends, bombing enemies: Germany's new order -- Epilogue: Lessons learned and not learned: bombing into the post-war world