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Max Hastings is a highly regarded war historian (primarily WWII) and author of a great many books examining his subject from various angles (most recently Winston’s War). His latest, Inferno, covers WWII through the lens of “regular people” as primary sources. In his introduction, he explains that his book does not seek to be a comprehensive study of WWII in all its events, bringing a reader from zero knowledge up to expert level; rather, it assumes some familiarity with the war and concentrates on people: “This is a book chiefly about human experience.”

Hastings did what he set out to do: he exposed the human experience of WWII, in all its horror and almost incomprehensible suffering and death, in its follies and incompetencies and cruelties and in its rare moments of black humor. The brief quotations from regular folks from dozens of countries are moving, illustrative, and diverse, both in viewpoint and in origin. They offer a valuable telling of the war, and serve as a great history lesson/review too.

This is a high-quality book; it has a lot to offer. At almost 700 pages, the reader’s motivation will have to be fairly high to invest the time and effort required to reap the full benefits. But for the interested reader, a treasure trove of honest contemporary accounts of this remarkable tragedy of history awaits.

This review was written for Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: history, nonfiction, Shelf Awareness |