World War II

Details on every major weapon and weapons system used by both sides, ships and ship classes, aircraft, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces, and small arms. A recounting of the major campaigns and battles on every front, with their outcomes related one to another. All the information you'd expect from an encyclopedia of World War II is certainly here--but so is a great deal more. In a massive and oversized volume, edited by one of the world's most honored military historians, an array of powerful visuals bring the story to immediate life, and the entries go far beyond a simple recitation of fact. The hundreds of biographies--which include both military and civilian leaders--as well as the battle entries, are constructed to provide a dramatic and continuous narrative of the war from its outbreak to its finish. A reasoned analysis of the motives and expectations of the combatants, and a rationale of their failures and successes, offer enlightenment and a many-sided history of the war as a whole. An entirely original and unequalled undertaking.