The very first historian to inspire me was John Keegan, who I studied under at Sandhurst, because he wrote The Face of Battle, which was one of the key moments in the turning points of military history.
Five Books interview on the best books about World War II
These were the notebooks that we worked on in Moscow and one realised that here was most of the raw material for Life and Fate which I think is probably the most important work of fiction about World War II.
Five Books interview on the best books about World War II
But Anna Reid's book goes far further because, with excellent research in archives which weren't available before, she is able to show how totally cynical Stalin's attitude was to Leningrad. Indeed it was a major factor in the appalling loss of life and suffering, which is very hard to appreciate.
Five Books interview on the best books about World War II
This book, A Woman in Berlin, is one of the great diaries of the whole war. Although it was published anonymously we do know the name of the woman who wrote it now.
Five Books interview on the best books about World War II
It is a remarkable work, not just of scholarship and research but, above all, of a fresh angle on the way that the inter-reaction between Nazism and Stalinism actually caused such appalling levels of hatred and murder in this particular area.
Five Books interview on the best books about World War II
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