John Keegan

May 1914 Europe is close to war and spies are everywhere. Richard Hannay has arrived back in London to begin a new life when a spy called Scudder asks for help to uncover a German plot to murder the Greek Prime Minister in London and to steal British plans for the outbreak of war. He claims to be following a ring of German spies called the Black Stone. A few days later Scudder is murdered. Hannay is forced to continue Scudder's work and is chased...

With the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to war making, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of some two thousand years, from the ritualistic combat of Stone Age people to the mass destruction warfare of the present age.

In burnished, driving prose, John Keegan chronicles the 1944 invasion of Normandy, from D-Day to the liberation of Paris. At the same time, he furthers his exploration of the “role which warfare and its institutions play in social life” by showing how each of the six armies, while resembling one another in purpose and authority, is a mirror of its own nation's values. Each army is shown at successive stages of the invasion in a battle sequence...

This landmark history of the conflict surveys the events, strategies, campaigns, and personalities of World War II, and covers in depth five key battles, weapons production, espionage, and the Resistance, among other topics.