Hitler's War


Book Description

A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.




West and East (The War That Came Early, Book Two)


Book Description

What if British prime minister Neville Chamberlain had defied Hitler? What if the Munich Accord had gone unsigned, and Nazi Germany had launched its bid for conquest sooner? How would World War II have unfolded—and with what consequences? Dean of alternate history Harry Turtledove has the stunning answers in his breathtaking sequel to Hitler’s War. In the wake of Hitler’s bold invasion of Czechoslovakia, nations turn against nations, old enemies form new alliances, and ordinary men and women confront extraordinary life-and-death situations. An American marine falls in love with a Russian dancer in Japanese-held Singapore, as Chinese guerilla resistance erupts. A sniper on the frontlines of France finds a powerful new way to ply his deadly art—while a German assassin hunts him. In the icy North Atlantic, as a U-boat with a secret weapon wreaks havoc on British ships, occupying Nazi forces target Denmark. And in Germany, a stranded American woman encounters Hitler himself, as a Jewish family faces the rising tide of hatred. From Siberia to Spain, armies clash, sides are chosen, new weapons raise the deadly ante, and new strategies seek to break a growing stalemate. But one question hangs over the conflict from West to East: What will it take to bring America into this war?




Orderly and Humane


Book Description

The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.




A Gathering Darkness


Book Description

The United States' involvement in World War II began with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. But for Japan, the conflict began at a much earlier date. This book focuses on Japan and the events in its military history leading up to and including Pearl Harbor. Unique in its perspective, A Gathering Darkness shows how historical events in the 1920s and 1930s steered the country into war with America and its allies. A Gathering Darkness looks at what happened inside Japan in the 1920s to change its outlook on the West. There was a general repudiation of western values by Japanese society, and Japan turned its back on the outside world and an international order that were making life difficult for the country. The treaties made in Washington in the 1920s left Japan with a local supremacy that no other power, including Britain and the United States, could challenge on the account of their lack of forward bases and their commitments that precluded full deployment of forces in the western Pacific. A Gathering Darkness shows why Japan became increasingly militant in the 1930s. The authors look at Japanese military involvement in Manchuria beginning in September 1931. They cover the beginning of Japan's involvement in China in 1937, a conflict in which Japan would up in a deadlock with the China theater of operations in the period 1939–1941. The book then analyzes the first five months of the Pacific War, including the Pearl Harbor strike and the synchronization of offensive operations across more than four thousand miles of ocean. It also investigates the dilemma Japan faced as it realized in early 1942 that the United States was not going to collapse. A Gathering Darkness is the first volume in SR Books' trilogy on the Pacific War. This book offers a fascinating look at the prelude to the Pacific War and the early stages of the conflict that no one interested in World War II, military history, or Japanese history will want to miss.




The Second World War in the Far East


Book Description

Leading historian of the war in the Far East, P.H. Willmott, provides a concise, readable account of the conflict. The book is fully illustrated throughout and incorporates computer generated graphics that bring the battlefields to life.




The Big Switch (The War That Came Early, Book Three)


Book Description

In 1941 Winston Churchill was Hitler’s worst enemy. Then a Nazi secret agent changed everything. What if Neville Chamberlain, instead of appeasing Hitler, had stood up to him in 1938? Enraged, Hitler reacts by lashing out at the West, promising his soldiers that they will reach Paris by the new year. Instead, three years pass, and with his genocidal apparatus not fully in place, Hitler barely survives a coup, while Jews cling to survival, and England and France wonder whether the war is still worthwhile. The stage is set for World War II to unfold far differently from the history we know—courtesy of Harry Turtledove, wizard of “what if?,” in the continuation of his thrilling series: The War That Came Early. Through the eyes of characters ranging from a brawling American serving with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain to a woman who has seen Hitler’s evil face-to-face, The Big Switch rolls relentlessly forward into 1941. As the Germans and their Polish allies slam into the gut of the Soviet Union in the west, Japan pummels away in the east. Meanwhile, in the trenches of France, French and Czech forces are outmanned but not outfought by their Nazi enemy. Then the stalemate is shattered. In England Winston Churchill dies suddenly, leaving the gray men wondering who their real enemy is. And as the USSR makes peace with Japan, the empire of the Rising Sun looks westward—its war with America about to begin.




Why the Allies Won


Book Description

"Overy has written a masterpiece of analytical history, posing and answering one of the great questions of the century."--Sunday Times (London)




Two Fronts (The War That Came Early, Book Five)


Book Description

In 1942, two nations switch sides—and World War II takes a horrifying new course. In the real world, England and France allowed Adolf Hitler to gobble up the Sudetenland in 1938. Once Hitler finished dismembering Czechoslovakia, he was ready to go to war over Poland a year later. But Hitler had always been eager to seize Czechoslovakia, no matter the consequences. So what if England and France had stood up to the Nazis from the start, and not eleven months later? That is the question behind the War That Came Early series. Four years later, the civil war in Spain drags on, even after General Franco’s death. The United States, still neutral in Europe, fights the Japanese in the Pacific. Russia and Germany go toe-to-toe in Eastern Europe—yet while Hitler stares east, not everything behind him is going as well as he would like. But nothing feeds ingenuity like the fear of losing. The Germans wheel out new tanks and planes, Japan deploys weapons of a very different sort against China, and the United States, England, and France do what they can to strengthen themselves against imminent danger. Seen through the eyes of ordinary citizens caught in the maelstrom, this is a you-are-there chronicle of battle on land and sea and in the air. Here are terrifying bombing raids that shatter homes, businesses, and the rule of law. Here are commanders issuing orders that, once given, cannot be taken back. And here are the seeds of rebellion sown in blood-soaked soil. In a war in which sides are switched and allies trust one another only slightly more than they trust their mortal enemies, Nazi Germany has yet to send its Jews to death camps, and dangerous new nationalist powers arise in Eastern Europe. From thrilling submarine battles to the horror of men fighting men and machines all through Europe, Two Fronts captures every aspect of a brilliantly reimagined conflict: the strategic, the political, and the personal force of leaders bending nations to their wills. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early: Last Orders. Praise for Two Fronts “[Harry] Turtledove has another major twist in store for the readers and his alternative world.”—SF Site “Turtledove’s new variation on the theme of WWII is departing more and more from the original, sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in less subtle ones. . . . What’s next is anybody’s guess, except that it will almost certainly be more surprises.”—Booklist “Turtledove is the standard-bearer for alternate history.”—USA Today Praise for Harry Turtledove “If you like alternate histories, you’re going to like this series a lot.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “Turtledove is the standard-bearer for alternate history.”—USA Today




The Burning Shore


Book Description

On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.




The Second World War


Book Description

A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.