Blood and Ruins- The Last Imperial War, 1931

Monumental, (A) vast and detailed study that is surely the finest single-volume history of World War Ii. Richard Overy has given us a powerful reminder of the horror of war and the threat posed by dictators with dreams of empire The Wall Street Journal A thought-provoking and original reassessment of World War Ii, from Britain's leading military historian A New York Times bestseller. Richard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins to recast the way in which we view the Second World War and its origins and aftermath. As one of Britain's most decorated and respected World War Ii historians, he argues that this was the last imperial war, with almost a century-long lead-up of global imperial expansion, which reached its peak in the territorial ambitions of Italy, Germany and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s, before descending into the largest and costliest war in human history and the end, after 1945, of all territorial empires. Overy also argues for a more global perspective on the war, one that looks broader than the typical focus on military conflict between the Allied and Axis states. Above all, Overy explains the bitter cost for those involved in fighting, and the exceptional level of crime and atrocity that marked the war and its protracted aftermathwhich extended far beyond 1945.