This is a great book for "amateur historians" who want to deepen their understanding of WWII, Hitler, and the German War Machine.

This review of Hitler's management of German battle campaigns during WWII is very interesting. The overriding aim of this work is to present and evaluate Hitler's prowess as a military leader.

I especially enjoyed the frequent references to the thoughts, criticisms,and concerns of the Generals who worked alongside the Fuhrer. Also found the presentation of Hitler's War Directives to be enlightening, as well as relevant to the discussion at hand.

This shorter book is a must read for anyone who has an interest in the "nuts and bolts" of WWII.

As an aside, I agree with the other reviewer who stated that the author seems to assume that the reader has a deep knowledge of the Campaigns. Yet this limitation doesn't prevent the reader from extracting a great deal of knowledge on Hitler's strengths and weaknesseses as a War Leader.

Readers are encouraged to check out the Time-Life (thin) books series on the Third Reich in WWII. Lots of great narrative and pictures on weapons,ships/Uboats,campaigns,politics,propaganda,etc. (I have no connection whatsover to that outfit....)

This book is among the best of the WWII books I have read, and I have read quite a few. As an amatuer WWII historian (hey, I'm 19, but I've done a lot of reading), I had my own thoughts about Hitler as a military commander. I saw this book on sale and bought it without hesitation and I think it is one of the best buys I have made. Strawson makes a complete analysis of every front of the European theater. He analyzes the strategy of not only Hitler, but also those of the French, British, Russian, and American army commanders. Why the strategies succeeded, and why they failed. He quotes and comments on Hitler's War Directives. All in all, a very good argument is made, and I agree with most of it. Strawson also gave me some new ideas and thoughts. My only complaint (and the only reason it got 4 stars instead of 5) is that Srawson assumes a certain level of intimacy with the historical data surrounding the War. I was familiar with most of it, but I needed some refreshment with the names and places of the less famous battles (the Balkan campaign comes to mind). But, despite this, Strawson has a very good work here, and it is a shame it is out of print.

i read this book a while back and found it to be a good start to this subject. the book does a good job of describing the experience of those involved in the desert war, which is the main focus of the book. although i search for more technical detail, this is certainly a good book to put those details into a more rounded perspective.

As I read the author's account of Superman Churchill, passing lightly over Churchillean stumbles such as putting Britain on the gold standard, Gallipoli, holding badly needed troops in northern Norway, etc., I realized I was reading hagiography and not history. The abhorrence of unpleasant stuff extends to Hitler. It's hard to believe that anyone could write a book about the dictator and never even mention the Holocaust, but Strawson did, without explanation or apology. I'm surprised he didn't omit World War II.

I am a Churchill admirer and was anxiously to read Strawson's book. I was a bit disappointed once I finished it. I had hoped for a detailed description - by a military man - of the war and Churchill's and Hitler's role leading their nations. Strawson spends almost half of the book "setting up" the war. This may be a good tack for those who might not know much about the background of the two protaganists. But, if you do know anything about Churchill's and Hitler's youth and rise this is needless filler. Also, Strawson seems to draw quite extensively from Isiah Berlin's "Churchill in 1940" and Allan Bullock's "Hitler" as sources. Having read both I am a little disconcerted that Berlin's work (a short but brilliant monograph) figures so prominently. And although Bullock's work is also well done, there are other superb Hitler biographies - like Joachim Fest's. I am additionally disappointed that Strawson's editors did not put full citations in the work - as foot or endnotes. Overall, this book didn't give me all I wanted. But, it is an admirable effort by an aging general who wants to leave his mark on modern military history.

this book does a fairly good job in paralleling the lives of hitler and churchill.the authors objectivity,however is clouded by his unbridled admiration for churchill.i was a bit disappointed in this because in order to get the full flavor of a person a balance of negatives and positives must be met.yet i admire the authors military acuman.he tells a good one of the north african campaign how the british rolled up the italian army,capturing no less than 10 divisions only to be repelled by rommels panzer forces.one of the best parts of the book to me was when the author did a comparison of leadership and temperaments between rommel and montgomery.he did a good job in explaining the might of the german army,and how it was developed in the 1930's.indeed one is left with the impression that german leaders like rommel and guderian were among the most innovative of the war.the author illustrates how hitler though a master of stragedy and creating bold concepts,gave in to his megalomania,and eventually lead the wehrmact to disaster.stalingrad is a case in point.overall i enjoyed the book, particularly the battle of britain, and despite the possibility of imminent invasion,churchill was eager to get the british back on the offensive.this book makes clear how important the meditterean was to the british empire.for history buffs this book may be a revisit of old territory.yet for students of military history this book is worth a read because he describes several of the campaigns so well,like the allied landing in anzio, and how general lucas waffled;blowing the allies chance of walking into rome with little german resistance.still this book disappointed me in one respect.the author fails to explain how hitler became the monster who caused the death of millions.there is little description of his childhood.

Utilizing a rambling and needlessly pedantic writing style, Strawson's confused text lacks all sense of direction. Even worse, the book is liberally peppered with obscure and largely unexplained literary references and foreign phrases, which Strawson has sown with an annoying "more abstruse than thou" tone.

Although the author admits his book is less a report of the historical events than an analysis of the leadership and strategic planning of the campaign, he totally fails to achieve either objective. In the end, the style more nearly resembles a stream of consciousness, shifting at will from revisionist history to incomplete military analysis. Only one point is clear: Strawson considers Montgomery to have been the only military genius on the continent. If only Eisenhower had listened to Monty, there would have been no Ardennes debacle. However, Strawson himself discloses (but does not admit) that Montgomery's plan, if followed, could have ensured the isolation and probable destruction of the entire Commonwealth expeditionary force, guaranteeing Hitler's prediction that "this time there will be no Dunkirk."

The tragedy is that Strawson, who was apparently himself a tank commander in Italy, does have some worthwhile points to make. However, he has buried them so deeply in the compost of supercilious and obscure literary references that the reader is hard pressed to find them, and harder pressed to summon the interest to consider them once found.