Books like Dunkirk by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

Eddie Chapman, a charismatic con‑man turned double agent, seduced, deceived, and ultimately betrayed both Nazi and British intelligence—revealing the fraught loyalties of wartime espionage.

A masterly narrative history of the climactic battles of the Second World War, and companion volume to his bestselling 'Armageddon', by the pre-eminent military historian Max Hastings.The battle for Japan that ended many months after the battle for Europe involved enormous naval, military and air operations from the borders of India to the most distant regions of China. There is no finer chronicler of these events than the great military historian Max Hastings, whose gripping account explores not just the global strategic objectives of the USA, Japan and Britain but also the first-hand experiences of the airmen, sailors and soldiers of all the countries who participated in the Far East and the war in the Pacific. The big moments in the story are chosen to reflect a wide variety of human experience: the great naval battle of Leyte Gulf; the under-reported war in China; the re-conquest of Burma by the British Army under General Slim; MacArthur's follies in the Philippines; the Marines on Iwojima and Okinawa; LeMay's fire-raising Super-fortress assaults on Japan; the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the kamikaze pilots of Japan; the almost unknown Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria in the last days of the war, as Stalin hastened to gather the spoils; and the terrible final acts across Japanese-occupied Asia.This is classic, epic history – both in the content and the manner of telling.

An exhaustive, first‑comprehensive account of the 1944 Normandy invasion from D‑Day to the liberation of Paris, detailing the experiences of Allied and German soldiers and the tragic impact on French civilians.

A vivid and comprehensive retelling of the pivotal rescue of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the very early stages of WW II. Gelb (The Berlin Wall, Less Than Glory) provides more than adequate background on why and how war came to Europe for the second time in just over 20 years. He also documents the blitzkrieg Nazi Germany unleashed against its Western neighbors on May 10, 1940. In less than three weeks, the author recounts, the Wehrmacht had brought France to its knees and trapped the BEF against the sea around Dunkirk. As Gelb makes clear, the ensuing evacuation (beginning May 26) that saved almost 225,000 British and roughly 140,000 French troops to fight another day was more a deliverance than a triumph. In addition to a day-by-day log of key events on the congested beaches and in a perilous English Channel during the ten-day exodus, the author furnishes intriguing perspectives on reactions in global capitals. Washington, to illustrate, drafted plans to send US troops to South America to prevent a German invasion. While London's invasion fears were appreciably more credible, Churchill's new coalition government was still able to mobilize a ragtag flotilla and sufficient air cover to extricate the besieged BEF, albeit without much of its equipment. Gelb does not glamorize the role played by civilian vessels in the recovery. (The official records remain sealed, but many skippers and crews quit after making an under-fire trip.) Nor does the author discount the importance of good fortune: the channel was atypically calm throughout the rescue mission (codenamed Operation Dynamo), and Hitler contributed some vital tactical blunders. A balanced account of a fabled exploit, which sets a high standard for other reconstructions sure to follow as Dunkirk's 50th anniversary approaches. The absorbing text includes photographs and maps (not seen).

"In making Sense of War, Amir Weiner reconceptualizes the entire historical experience of the Soviet Union from a new perspective, that of World War II. Breaking with the conventional interpretation that views World War II as a post-revolutionary addendum, Weiner situates this event at the crux of the development of the Soviet - not just the Stalinist - system. Through a richly detailed look at Soviet society as a whole, and at one Ukrainian region in particular, the author shows how World War II came to define the ways in which members of the political elite a well as ordinary citizens viewed the world and acted upon their beliefs and ideologies."--BOOK JACKET.

A thriller about a World War II spy network and their desperate efforts to protect their agents from capture or death.

A clear, well‑researched account of Operation Overlord told through the voices of survivors, offering a readable, in‑depth look at the planning and conduct of the Normandy invasion.

To end a history of World War II at VE Day is to leave the tale half told. While the war may have seemed all but over by Hitler's final birthday (April 20), Stafford' s chronicle of the three months that followed tells a different, and much richer, story. ENDGAME 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Through their ground-level movements, Stafford traces the elaborate web of events that led to the war's real resolution: the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau, and the Allies' race with the Red Army to establish a victors' foothold in Europe, to name a few. From Hitler's April decision never to surrender to the start of the Potsdam Conference, Stafford brings an unprecedented focus to the war's "final chapter." Narrative history at its most compelling, ENDGAME 1945 is the riveting story of three turbulent months that truly shaped the modern world.

November 1944. The British government finally agrees to send a brigade of 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. But when the war ends and the soldiers witness firsthand the horrors their people have suffered in the concentration camps, the men launch a brutal and calculating campaign of vengeance, forming secret squads to identify, locate, and kill Nazi officers in hiding. Their own ferocity threatens to overwhelm them until a fortuitous encounter with an orphaned girl sets the men on a course of action — rescuing Jewish war orphans and transporting them to Palestine — that will not only change their lives but also help create a nation and forever alter the course of world history.

Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth explores the Holocaust as a complex, multi‑regional tragedy rooted in ideology, antisemitism, and environmental fears, using new Eastern European sources to warn about today’s growing threats.

"cracking stuff . . . vivid and hitherto unknown details."-Sunday Times (London) The complete untold story of the cracking of the infamous Nazi code Most histories of the cracking of the elusive Enigma code focus on the work done by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Britain's famous World War II counterintelligence station. In this fascinating account, however, we are told, for the first time, the hair-raising stories of the heroic British and American sailors, spies, and secret agents who put their lives on the line to provide the codebreakers with the materials they needed. Noted British journalist Hugh Sebag-Montefiore tracked down many of the surviving players in the Enigma drama, and these witnesses-some of them speaking on record for the first time-provide unforgettable firsthand accounts of the courageous men and women who faced death in order to capture vital codebooks from sinking ships and snatch them from under the noses of Nazi officials. In addition to these gripping stories, we learn fascinating new details about the genesis of the code and the feverish activities at Bletchley. Enigma is a spellbinding account of the brilliant feat of decryption that turned the tide of World War II.