[.ca] A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (ISBN 0521618266)

From Amazon.com:
This comprehensive examination of the Second World War looks at grand strategy and diplomacy, as opposed to the gritty details of the combat experience. A World at Arms is written in a matter-of-fact tone, so don't expect a poetic narrative. Despite this, no other historian has presented such a sweeping overview. Weinberg performs the important task of reminding his readers in the West that much of the fighting--and perhaps the most decisive parts--was done in the East, between the Germans and the Russians. American readers, for their part, may appreciate Weinberg's treatment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is portrayed as a courageous wartime leader. This book is an essential part of any library on the Second World War.

Weinberg authors a historical masterpiece:
"A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II," is a historical masterpiece. Hats off to Author Gerjard L. Weinberg for maintaining a high degree of objectivity and not waving any partisan flags. All serious students of World War II "must" study this comprehensive work. To this end, the preface, body, conclusion, notes, maps and index are outstanding. This heavy-weight Cambridge Univeristy Press book (1,178 pages) belongs in every library. Moreover, the author must be commended for starting this book when his wife (who urged him to continue) was already fighting cancer. A battle she eventually lost. Weinberg brings a compelling focus to World War II that few historians can match (particularly with the German/Soviet Union confrontation)...I for one am grateful for his dedication. I first read this book nearly ten years ago...and now realize just how great this man's vision extends. Weinberg is truly a remarkable historian. Highly recommended for those who want the truth about World War II. Bert Ruiz

Want a tour-de-force read on WWII? This is it!!!:
"A World At Arms" is quite frankly one of the best books on WWII I have ever read (I've read few). This is one packed book. Weinberg covers the events leading up to the war, as well as the events themselves. Although 1300ish pages in length it reads like a 250 page books that fills your soul with facts! You'll get the how's, who's, where's, and why's - even if you already know the when's and what's they're there also. Truly a "world" perspective, Weinberg includes it all. It really is hard to now imagine how much this book covered and how easily it does it. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Yet, block some time, even though it's an easy read it is more than half the length of "War and Peace" so it takes time - but time well spent.

The best one-volume treatment I ever expect to see:
My perfect one-volume history of World War II would combine Weinberg's lucid organization of the strategic concerns of the war and his unsurpassed breadth of scholarship (it's daunting even to read all the *titles* in his bibliography - let alone the books themselves!), John Keegan's vivid recreation of the operational and tactical levels of the fighting as well as his general narrative liveliness, and (since more died out of uniform than in) Martin Gilbert's much-needed attention to the horrifying scale of civilian suffering. Since that book doesn't exist (and would be as thick as an unabridged dictionary if it did), I would - by a narrow margin - pick Weingerg as my one book on the subject if I could have only one. There simply aren't two covers anywhere with as much of the whole vast story between them. Although Weinberg is more interested in the drag on Germany's industrial capacity from the cessation of Turkish exports of chromium than on a Leningrad mother hauling the frozen corpse of her starved child behind her on a sled (less a scholar's tunnel vision than a reasoned decision to do one thing well rather than many things poorly), no one I know of has given a fuller and clearer account of why everything happened the way it did. To address some of the criticisms of the book I've read here: I agree that the few maps provided are ludicrously inadequate - a shoddy afterthought that can only have raised the book's already considerable price. (At least they're tucked away in the back of the book where you can comfortably ignore them.) However, the prose - while not as spry as Keegan's admirable standard - should be perfectly intelligible to anyone intelligent enough to be tackling a book of this scope in the first place. Here's what I consider to be a representative sample: "Until access to the Soviet archives enables scholars to see more clearly into these murky episodes, this author will remain convinced that it was the shock of German military revival so soon after the great Soviet victory at Stalingrad which reinforced Stalin's inclinations during 1943 to contemplate the possibility of either a separate peace with Hitler's Germany or with some alternative German government." Not Clancy, but not Clausewitz either.

As fine a one-volume history as we could hope to have:
Gerhard L. Weinberg's single-volume history of WW II is truly remarkable in that it presents not merely an account of the battles and major events of the war, but the politics and diplomacy that were truly as important and as essential as what happened on the battlefield. Too many histories of wars are written by historians who are fixated on battles, and the development of wartime technology, and bombing campaigns, and tactics on the field. Weinberg does not neglect these expects of the war, but he knows that these other aspects are in large part an outgrowth of other factors: industrial output, the cooperation between allies in sharing ideas, goals, and materials as well as coordinating battle plans, and the personalities driving each country. In short, this is a comprehensive history of World War Two, and not merely an account of its military campaigns. Not only this, but Weinberg successfully addresses the greatest fault of most Anglo-European histories of the war: to focus too much on the European Western front and the Pacific campaign, ignoring the fact that by far the greatest amount of fighting--both in terms of men deployed and in casualties suffered and inflicted--came on the long and decision Russian front. Although the Germans deployed far more of their military along their Eastern front, in the West we constantly tend to forgot this. Unquestionably, this is in part a function of the natural myopia all human beings are subject, as we tend to focus more closely on those aspects of an affair that more directly involve us. But in the West it is also a lingering offshoot of the Cold War, during which time Americans and Europeans unquestionably minimized and even ignored the massive Soviet contributions to the war. No nation gave more of its lifeblood in the winning of World War Two, and Weinberg is to be praised for writing accurately about it. Despite being only one volume, this is truly a massive book. Weinberg deals with every imaginable aspect of the war, some that I have already noted. It is a weighty, thick book, replete with extensive bibliography and footnotes. There are no illustrations, a decision that was probably made because there are thousands of other books that visualize the war in every imaginable fashion. My complaint concerns the paucity of maps. There are a group of maps contained at the end of the volume, but I think the text would have been far more useful with a series of additional and smaller maps that would have more precisely located geographically where major events were taking place. But this is a minor point. A more substantial criticism is that the book leaves out almost entirely the social aspect of the war and does not deal as extensively with what was happening on the homefront, on how the war was changing and altering the nations participating. For instance, the war exerted massive influence on the United States, having dramatic effects on politics, race, gender, and economic matters. These topics are almost completely left alone. In a one-volume history, one must make decisions about what to leave in and out, and Weinberg focuses on the fighting and the geopolitical aspects. There is a wealth of other one-volume histories of World War Two available, but this is, I believe, clearly the one for anyone wanting to learn more about the war in depth to read. I would, however, argue that any event the magnitude of WW II requires the serious student to approach it from several points of view. No single volume could ever do the trick.

A little heavy going but splendid:
This is only for those who are seriously interested in World War II and it should be read only by people fairly familiar with the basic history of the war. A beginner will get lost in Mr. Weinberg's details and thoroughness. The maps are poor and there are no pictures but the author's mastery of the subject makes up for that. Mr. Weinberger has his preferences : for instance, he is no friend of Montgomery, generally treats the British military with contempt and positively seems to hate Wehrmacht generals for covering up atrocities they did not disapprove of - an opinion I happen to share - but also for writing "self serving memoirs" as though memoirs could be anything else than self serving ! But these are minor details in an otherwise splendid book, an absolute must for anyone wishing to gain a clearer understanding of this planet's history between 1939 and 1945. The book is long, the writing sometime a little heavy, but every 920 page is worth the reader's full attention.