I love personal, down-to-earth style of Alexaner Werth writing. He is a true, honest journalist who doesn't want to raise himself over his heroes like some other "military historians". Rather, he is an objective observer who lets you feel what is it like to be in that other guy's shoes.

Not only this book serves as an excellent historical account of the Stalingrad battle and events preceding and following it, but it's also a human account. Because Werth spends a lot of time explaining the atmosphere and people of 1942, it is so much easier to understand those people, their decisions and actions. I'm also grateful to Alexander Werth for sharing his knowledge and admiration for the Russian culture and people with the English-speaking world.

Having read several modern books that deal with numbers, dry facts only and try to view those different times with today's people's mentality and context, Werth's book is a pleasant contrast that comes from the first source. History is not a technical discipline or definite science, and Alexander Werth sets an example on how it should be taught.

There are many books on the Russian-German conflict of the Second World War, but Alexander Werth's RUSSIA AT WAR is one of the longest, the most detailed, and the most comprehensive. It is impossible to read it and not get a sense of the masses of men and machines that bashed into each other for nearly four years. His use of detail, map, and breadth of coverage make his book a worthy complement to the bookshelf of war historians. There is, however, a flaw running throughout that nullifies much of the veracity and objectivity that ought to be intrinsic to a serious work of military history. That flaw is his pro-Soviet bias, in particular his refusal to see First Secretary Joseph Stalin as the murderous thug that he was.
Werth divides his history into seven sections. In the first,called 'Prelude to War,' he discusses the months and years that preceded Operation Barbarossa. To him, Hitler is correctly identified as the architect of the war. Werth analyzes what now seems painfully evident in hindsight--the plans for the invasion of Poland. He is less than truthful with Stalin's role in pre-1941 attempts at European hegemony. Werth writes, 'Throughout, Stalin recalls, the Soviet Union had pursued a policy of peace.' (page 40) In that same paragraph, he adds, 'The Soviet Union wanted peace; she wanted peace and business relations with all countries, so long as they did not impinge on her interests.' It is difficult to read this and not gasp in disbelief at Werth's naivete. Russia gobbled up Finland in 1940 even though the Finns did not 'impinge on her interests.' As for Poland, Werth rationalizes the Russian invasion after the Poles were already thoroughly beaten by the Nazis as 'the Soviet government could no longer be neutral in the face of reigning chaos in Poland or the fact that 'our blood-brothers, the Ukrainians and Belorussians are being abandoned to their fate.'' As Werth progresses in his history, he tends to become somewhat more even-handed, and it is in his middle chapters that his true stengths as a writer and historian are evident. He describes the siege of Leningrad and the assault on Moscow by the Wehrmacht in their bloody horror, even if he allows masses of details of lives lost to punctuate his claims.
Some pertinent analyses are missing. Nowhere does he blame Stalin for the great military purges of 1937 as one of the leading factors that ripped the heart out of the Soviet High Command and left Russia very nearly without competent leadership. Nowhere does he describe the fall of Berlin in 1945, for if he had done so, he would have had to explain the mass rape that was perpetrated on all Berlin women by elements of the Red Army. Nowhere does he even hint at the role the NKVD played as Stalin's personal execution squads, a group that undoubtedly killed more fellow Slavs with a bullet to the back of the neck than it did Germans in defense of the Soviet homeland. As I finished reading this massive history, I paused for a moment to read the publicity comments written on the front cover by William L. Shirer, author of RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, 'The result...is the best book we probably shall ever have in English on Russia at war.' Werth's book is useful in connecting the myriad of dots that was the war on the Eastern Front, but the best book? I don't think so. It is fatally flawed by his unabashed admiration for a thug who feared his own people more than he did his neighbors.

Alexander Werth has sometimes been accused of being a Soviet-apologist. But in his superb history of the Eastern Front, it is the Russian (and Belorussian, Siberian, Ukrainian, etc)*people* who are the true heroes. Published in 1964, the work is undeniably free of the Russophobia of an accelerating Cold War period, probably due to its focus on the human drama and trauma of the War. The Russian people endured horrific loss and suffering, no small part of which was brought on by the policies of Stalin himself. But because Stalin was savvy enough to appeal to Slavic pride and national loyalty -- even to simultaneously procuring the blessings of the Orthodox Church and resurrecting the pagan image of Mother Russia -- ordinary Russians were willing to give everything for their "People's Sacred War". This massive book (nearly 1100 pages) is extremely "readable", being divided into numerous small chapters of 10 - 20 page length. Poignant first-person interviews with combatants and civilians, survivors of battle and siege, give the reader appreciation for what the Russians accomplished, and admiration for them as a people. The author has three other books, out of print but worthy of reading, "Russia: Hopes and Fears", "Russia: The Post War Years", and "Russia Under Krushchev".

Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth is one of the most incredible history books in existence. Eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of barbaric Nazi occupation and interviews with survivors of German captivity are haunting and unforgettable. With its maps, contemporary press clippings and excerpts from memoirs by Nazi and Russian officers the book appears to be an invaluable repository of second world war facts put in concise, popularly accessible form. To a modern day revisionist, Cold War warrior or russphobe, some of Alexander Werth's accounts may seem to be overly pro-Soviet (or rather too unsympathetic to the Nazis - the complaint one hears most frequently) and the style with which he described certain events as insensitive and even callous (like his stunning narration of the last days of the German army at Stalingrad), however to most people reading Alexander Werth's Russia at War will uncover a new honest perspective both on the events leading to the WWII and on the actual meaning of the allied Victory at its conclusion. This fascinating book is so well written, that comparing it to other books on the same subject is difficult and perhaps unfair to their authors, one can compare reading Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth to playing an addictive (computer) game: once started, it is almost impossible to stop.

I was prompted to purchase this book after seeing the incredible images by Alexader Tsiaras in the Time Magazine article.(11/11/02 issue) On the visual level, this book is captivating and takes my curiousity further into the developmental process. Unfortunately, the images are not captioned in a way to be helpful.
For example, there is a series of images in the book (p.275) that also appear in Time. Time captioned the images,"This series showing how a baby emerges from the birth canal began with an unusual delivery that required doctors to place the mother in a spiral CT canner. The images were merged with CT and ultrasound data from other babes to create this re-enacted birth." In the book, there is not a clue about how specific images came about. Instead the text is written as though it were for parents curious about pregnancy.
Tsiaras's work has such profound implications for our understanding human development, that it seems a shame for the
captions to miss by not addressing what is actually transpiring in the images. I was often left wondering if I was looking simulations of DNA or actual strands. There is NO appendix in the book to clarify an of this.
I'll keep the book for the breakthrough that the images represent, but lack of data in the captions leaves a sense that the images were short changed.

From Birth to Conception will satiate anyone with a visual mind as to the formation of a baby in the womb! As a medical student I can appreciate the detail and 3-dimensional insight into structural relationships within the body that cross-sectional analysis (used to make the images) affords. Tsiaras and his cast of anatomical illustrators make use of innumerable cross-sections, bringing about the most accurate depictions of the embryo. Combine that with the most advanced technologies in imaging and the outcomes are stunning. The book is great for anyone interested in embryonic development;a very understandable read as well.

I picked up this book after reading the Time issue that featured some of the pictures from it. The pictures are absolutely incredible, telling the story in a way no author ever could. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these images would be novels unto themselves. The writing is interesting and informative. And, as an added bonus, I get to keep coming back to Amazon[.com] to find out what jealous Ph.D's do with their spare time. The things they grasp at to criticize this book leave me writhing on the floor in giggle fits. I especially loved the one that took issue with ordering the pictures from conception through development and then birth. Can it happen any other way? ROFLMAO! But really, check this book out; you won't be disappointed. And do come back here to read the inane drivel. It is not as well written as the book or anywhere near as fascinating as the images, but it is always worth a laugh or two.