I love military history books and this one by Max Hastings ranks along Antony Beevor's WW2 books (Stalingrad, Berlin etc....., he is very uncompromising in his views of certain military failures like Market Garden, Zhukov's Oder crossing and the Ardennes Offensive, even that the allied soldier was a factor in why the war didn't end in 1944, criticism of Montgomery and Patton and Churchill aswell, the cautiousness of Allied generals viewed against Soviet generals who cared little for their men and had a lot of pressure placed on them from Stalin, there are lots more observations in no real order, the maps are not great either but this is minor compared to the writing and content. I loved the book for it's opinions and would recommend it to anybody with an interest in the last years of the war.
Now a couple of years ago I loaned this book to Ian (a fellow Reject) and I haven't seen it since (even after many enquiries as to it's whereabouts), it upset him that much the criticism of the allied soldier and Churchill especially in the last years of the war in the book, I believe he binned it or burnt it but only Ian knows? I mention this as I ended up buying the book again and love the effect it had on him and I believe some books do bring out the passion in people but he still owes me for the book.