The best and most recent books on WW2 in Europe

'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians.' Sebastian Faulks
'Holland's skill lies in bringing these warriors to life with vivid prose.' The Times
Shortlisted for the 2021 British Army Military Book of the Year
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This is the story of the biggest seaborne landing in history.

Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted. That day, over 160,000 Allied troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore to begin the fight for Europe.

The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most… show more.

Snow and Steel is a huge reassessment of Hitler's last great throw of the dice: 'The Battle of the Bulge', the battle for the Ardennes 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. This was an utterly fascinating five weeks when for a time it looked like Hitler had outflanked the allied armies pushing toward the Rhine and might just throw them back to the Normandy beaches. It is also the context for the catastrophic events at Bastogne depicted so graphically in Band of Brothers.

For military history fans this is one of those touchstone battles of the second world war,… show more.

A new and definitive account of the German invasion of Poland that initiated WWII in 1939, written by a historian at the height of his abilities.

'Deeply researched, very well-written... This book will be the standard work on the subject for many years to come' - Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

The Polish campaign is the forgotten story of the Second World War.

The war began on 1 September 1939, when German tanks, trucks and infantry crossed the Polish border, and the Luftwaffe began bombing Poland's towns and cities. The Polish army fought bravely but could not… show more.

Historian John Buckley offers a radical reappraisal of Great Britain's fighting forces during World War Two, challenging the common belief that the British Army was no match for the forces of Hitler's Germany. Following Britain's military commanders and troops across the battlefields of Europe, from D-Day to VE-Day, from the Normandy beaches to Arnhem and the Rhine, and, ultimately, to the Baltic, Buckley's provocative history demonstrates that the British Army was more than a match for the vaunted Nazi war machine. This fascinating revisionist study of the campaign to liberate Northern Europe in the war's final years features a large… show more.

In a definitive new account of the Soviet Union at war, Alexander Hill charts the development, successes and failures of the Red Army from the industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s through to the end of the Great Patriotic War in May 1945. Setting military strategy and operations within a broader context that includes national mobilisation on a staggering scale, the book presents a comprehensive account of the origins and course of the war from the perspective of this key Allied power. Drawing on the latest archival research and a wealth of eyewitness testimony, Hill portrays the… show more.