Mentioned in passing on our Livestream, but do not pass up a chance to buy this tome: Phillips Payson O’Brien’s ‘How the War was Won’ is a standard, it’s the must-have books for the facts and figures you need to understand the second world war. He focuses on the Allies, and how their development of air and sea power put unbearable pressure on Germany and Japan – forcing their hand in many campaigns, dramatically expanding the area of battle. It’s provocative, it’s a testament to academic research made readable, and it’s infused with primary and secondary sources; forcing scholars to think hard about what we thought we knew and, yes, perhaps the very nature of modern warfare in general. Dense – as in, this isn’t a lightweight book – Payson O’Brien puts a huge amount of data about manufacturing and losses over the years to support his thesis, and his arguments are backed up by detailed charts and tables showing figures on deployments, military production, expenditure and equipment losses.
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>> Livestream Thursday 25th June 2020
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