New Releases by Max Hastings

From the acclaimed military historian, a history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles—the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg—that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud and futility. He traces the path to war, making clear why Germany and Austria-Hungary were primarily to blame, and describes the gripping first clashes in the West, where the French army marched into action in uniforms of red and blue with flags flying and bands playing. In August, four days after the French suffered 27,000 men dead in a single day, the British fought an extraordinary holding action against oncoming Germans, one of the last of its kind in history. In October, at terrible cost the British held the allied line against massive German assaults in the first battle of Ypres. Hastings also re-creates the lesser-known battles on the Eastern Front, brutal struggles in Serbia, East Prussia and Galicia, where the Germans, Austrians, Russians and Serbs inflicted three million casualties upon one another by Christmas. As he has done in his celebrated, award-winning works on World War II, Hastings gives us frank assessments of generals and political leaders and masterly analyses of the political currents that led the continent to war. He argues passionately against the contention that the war was not worth the cost, maintaining that Germany’s defeat was vital to the freedom of Europe. Throughout we encounter statesmen, generals, peasants, housewives and private soldiers of seven nations in Hastings’s accustomed blend of top-down and bottom-up accounts: generals dismounting to lead troops in bayonet charges over 1,500 feet of open ground; farmers who at first decried the requisition of their horses; infantry men engaged in a haggard retreat, sleeping four hours a night in their haste. This is a vivid new portrait of how a continent became embroiled in war and what befell millions of men and women in a conflict that would change everything.

Best viewed on a tablet, includes exclusive audio and video. The special edition of Max Hastings’ magisterial chronicle of Europe in 1914. Explore the position of armies in detail. Search the timeline for the ultimate overview. Watch footage of the protagonists, battlefields and wartime cities. Hear an exclusive author interview.

DIVBomber Command is Sir Max Hastings’ classic account of one of the most controversial struggles of World War II: the British air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany. /div

«Scritto con fluidità e autorevolezza, Inferno offre un resoconto della guerra che si concentra sul vissuto degli uomini e delle donne che vi hanno preso parte. Quasi in ogni pagina c’è materiale memorabile ricavato da interviste, diari, lettere, ricordi e documenti personali di vario genere. Una teoria di personaggi e testimoni che dà a questo grandioso libro un respiro quasi tolstoiano». New York Times «Un’opera davvero grandiosa: umana, scettica, vivace, autorevole e assolutamente priva di sciovinismo». Independent «Max Hastings non ci risparmia niente nel ritrarre la sanguinosa ferocia della peggiore guerra che il mondo abbia mai vissuto. Un libro magnifico e ipnotico, dalla prima all’ultima pagina». Sunday Telegraph «Maestoso... Impossibile uscirne senza il senso della vastità della tragedia umana». Daily Telegraph «Nessun’altro libro sulla Seconda guerra mondiale amalgama con tanto successo dati oggettivi, analisi prettamente storiche, toccanti vicende umane e argomenti di strategia militare». Times

Collected here for the first time are key works by this century''s leading military historians, all recipients of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The Pritzker Literature Award honors writers whose work adds to the public''s understanding of military history and the role played by the military in civil society. In the tradition of historians dating back to ancient times, these authors and scholars demonstrate the numerous ways to write about military history. The surreal fiction of Tim O''Brien''s Vietnam is just pages from an in-depth look at General George S. Patton by today''s leading biographer, Carlo D''Este. Max Hastings and Rick Atkinson use their backgrounds to add a journalistic touch to modern studies of World War I and World War II, respectively. Gerhard Weinberg examines global leaders during World War II as Allan Millett discusses the developing technology that allowed them to further their causes. And James McPherson, the preeminent living Civil War scholar examines crisis in America with accessible and articulate literary skill.

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award. In February 2002 Max Hastings retired from his position as a ''Fleet Street'' Editor. His is an enormously illustrious career which started in 1985, when he was offered the Editorship of a national institution - the Daily Telegraph - in a surprise move by its owners. This candid memoir tells the story of what happened to him, and to a great newspaper, over the next decade. It is all here: the rows with prime ministers, the coverage of great events, the daily routine. Max Hastings describes his complex relationship with his proprietor, Conrad Black. He offers an extraordinary perspective on the decline of John Major, the troubles of the Royal Family, the difficulties of dealing with lawyers and celebrities, statesmen and stars. Editor: A Memoir is above all the story of the excitement and exhilaration of almost 10 years at the helm of one of the greatest newspapers in the world.

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.

"O retrato de um tremendo confronto armado compensatório para os Aliados, e não para os alemães, na vitória final. Os primeiros relatos do cenário em que ocorreram os desembarques e seus preparativos serão familiares para alguns leitores, mas a sua inclusão parece necessária em prol da perfeição, pois uma história tão maravilhosa merece ser contada novamente. Procurei examinar aspetos menos estudados da estratégia e desempenho dos exércitos e analisar algumas verdades incómodas sobre o que ocorreu no verão de 1944." Os famosos desembarques do dia D, a 6 de Junho de 1944, marcaram o início da Operação Overlord, a célebre batalha pela libertação da Europa. Max Hastings desconstrói neste livro alguns mitos deste conflito, escrevendo um estudo memorável. Com relatos na primeira pessoa de sobreviventes dos dois lados e uma grande profusão de fontes e documentos inexplorados, Operação Overlord proporciona uma perspetiva brilhante mas também controversa da devastadora batalha da Normandia.

«Este es sobre todo un libro de experiencias humanas», nos dice Max Hastings, autor de libros tan valiosos como Armagedon, Némesis y La guerra de Churchill, que ha querido culminar su carrera como investigador de la historia de la Segunda guerra mundial con una ambiciosa visión global, que se aparta de las que se han publicado hasta ahora por el peso que da a las experiencias vividas. “Hombres y mujeres de un buen número de naciones –nos dice- se han afanado por buscar palabras con las que describir lo que vivieron”. Valiéndose de estos testimonios de quienes participaron en la guerra en los más diversos escenarios del planeta, Hastings enriquece el relato de bombardeos, batallas y crímenes de guerra con una dimensión humana que los transforma. Esta no es la visión histórica tradicional, elaborada a partir de los que han dicho y escrito políticos y generales, sino un relato coral, construido con las voces de los de abajo, víctimas y verdugos, que nos ofrecen una imagen nueva y distinta de la guerra.

Boken handler om kappløpet mot Berlin i krigens siste fase. Hastings analyserer hvorfor det gikk galt med de alliertes felttog fra vest og stiller spørsmålet: Hvem hadde ansvaret for at de allierte ikke vant krigen i 1944? Han har intervjuet 170 tidsvitner og gransket arkiver i flere land. Forfatteren er tidligere avisredaktør og har skrevet flere bøker om andre verdenskrig tidligere.

An exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of sixteen ‘warriors’ from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience by the eminent military historian, author and ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings.

A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain’s influence and limit Stalin’s gains. At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless, Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the nation through the bitter war. Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while still managing to capture what he calls Churchill’s “appetite for the fray.” Certain to be a classic, Winston’s War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.

"By looking at Churchill from the outside in, through the eyes of British soldiers, civilians and newspapers, and also those of Russians and Americans, Hastings provides new perspectives on the greatest Englishman and the precarious Grand Alliance. He condemns as folly Churchill''s attempt to promote mass uprisings in occupied Europe through SOE, and describes the prime minister''s disastrous but little-known Dodecanese campaign of 1943. He details Unthinkable, his amazing 1945 plan for an Allied offensive against the Russians to liberate Poland. Here is an intimate and affectionate portrait of Churchill as Britain''s saviour, but also an unsparing examination of the wartime nation which he led and the performance of its armed forces."--Jacket.

Max Hastings''s account of his family''s tumultuous 20th century experiences embraces the worlds of fashion and newspapers, theatre and TV, pioneering in Africa and even - his father''s most exotic 1960 stunt - being cast away on a desert island in the Indian Ocean. The author is the son of broadcaster and adventurer Macdonald Hastings and journalist and gardening writer Anne Scott-James. One of his grandfathers was a literary editor while the other wrote plays and essays, and penned an enchanting memoir of his own Victorian childhood. His great-uncle was an African hunter who wrote poetry and became one of Max''s heroes. The author tells a richly picaresque story, featuring guest appearances by a host of celebrities from Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad to John Betjeman and Osbert Lancaster, who became Anne Scott-James''s third husband. ''All families are dysfunctional'', Anne asserted impenitently to Max, but the Hastingses managed to be more dysfunctional than most. His father roamed the world for newspapers and as a presenter for BBC TV''s legendary Tonight programme, while his mother edited ''Harper''s Bazaar'', became a famous columnist and wrote best-selling gardening books. Here, the author brings together this remarkable cast of forebears, ''a tribe of eccentrics'', as he himself characterises them. By turns moving, dramatic and comic, the book portrays Max''s own childhood fraught with rows and explosions, in which the sudden death of a television set was only one highlight. His story will make a lot of people laugh and perhaps a few cry. It helps to explain why Max Hastings, whose family has produced more than eighty books over three generations, felt bound to follow their path of high adventure and popular journalism.

This book is an examination of the intellectual milestones and contributions of the IISS to fifty years of strategic studies.

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan''s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan''s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces. In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws incisive portraits of MacArthur, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and other key figures of the war in the East. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors caught in the bloodiest of campaigns. With its piercing and convincing analysis, Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.

No hubo una Segunda guerra mundial, nos dice Max Hastings, autor de Armagedón, sino dos, completamente distintas: la que se desarrolló en Europa y la que tuvo por escenario el oriente de Asia y el Pacífico, con más de treinta millones de muertos. Este libro nos habla de esta “otra” guerra, no menos dramática y trascendental, pero hasta hoy demasiado olvidada. Basándose en un gran trabajo de documentación y en la recogida de testimonios de los supervivientes, Hastings recupera esta epopeya, en una sucesión de episodios que van desde la historia del “ejército olvidado” de los británicos en Birmania hasta la invasión soviética de Manchuria, pasando por los sufrimientos del pueblo chino, las grandes batallas navales, la brutalidad de los campos de prisioneros y de los barcos de la muerte, la lucha por las Filipinas, la sangrienta conquista de Iwo Jima, la destrucción de las ciudades japonesas incendiadas por los bombardeos con “napalm” o el drama secreto que se desarrolló en torno al palacio imperial de Tokio en los días de la capitulación.

"The battle for Japan that ended many months after the battle for Europe involved enormous naval, military and air operations from the borders of India to the most distant regions of China. There is no finer chronicler of these events than the great military historian Max Hastings, whose gripping account explores not just the global strategic objectives of the USA, Japan and Britain but also the first-hand experiences of the airmen, sailors and soldiers of all the countries who participated in the Far East and the war in the Pacific. The big moments in the story are chosen to reflect a wide variety of human experience: the great naval battle of Leyte Gulf; the under-reported war in China; the re-conquest of Burma by the British Army under General Slim; MacArthur''s follies in the Philippines; the Marines on Iwojima and Okinawa; LeMay''s fire-raising Super-fortress assaults on Japan; the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the kamikaze pilots of Japan; the almost unknown Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria in the last days of the war, as Stalin hastened to gather the spoils; and the terrible final acts across Japanese-occupied Asia."--Publisher description

Uses memorabilia and personal documents from the archives of the Imperial War Museum along with personal accounts to provide an illustrated history of the British Army from the turn of the century to the invasion of Iraq and Operation Telic.

This is an exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of 15 ''warriors'' from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience.

This is a collection of rural writings celebrating the pleasures of the country life - in particular fishing and shooting - by the eminent military historian and former editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'', Sir Max Hastings.

This is epic story of the last eight months of World War II in Europe by one of Britain’s most highly regarded military historians, whose accounts of past battles John Keegan has described as worthy “to stand with that of the best journalists and writers” (New York Times Book Review). In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler’s army was beaten, and expected that the war would be over by Christmas. But the disastrous Allied airborne landing in Holland, American setbacks on the German border and in the Hürtgen Forest, together with the bitter Battle of the Bulge, drastically altered that timetable. Hastings tells the story of both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and paints a vivid portrait of the Red Army’s onslaught on Hitler’s empire. He has searched the archives of the major combatants and interviewed 170 survivors to give us an unprecedented understanding of how the great battles were fought, and of their human impact on American, British, German, and Russian soldiers and civilians. Hastings raises provocative questions: Were the Western Allied cause and campaign compromised by a desire to get the Soviets to do most of the fighting? Why were the Russians and Germans more effective soldiers than the Americans and British? Why did the bombing of Germany’s cities continue until the last weeks of the war, when it could no longer influence the outcome? Why did the Germans prove more fanatical foes than the Japanese, fighting to the bitter end? This book also contains vivid portraits of Stalin, Churchill, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and the other giants of the struggle. The crucial final months of the twentieth century’s greatest global conflict come alive in this rousing and revelatory chronicle.

Max Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors. But after his failure as a parachute soldier in Cyprus in 1963, he became a journalist instead. Before he was 30 he had reported conflicts in Northern Ireland, Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Cyprus, Rhodesia, India and a string of other trouble spots. His final effort was as a war correspondent during the Falklands War. Going to the Wars is a story of his experiences reporting from these battlefields. It is also the story of a self-confessed coward: a writer with heroic ambitions who found himself recording the acts of heroes. PRAISE FOR MAX HASTINGS ''Max Hastings is one of the greatest living war correspondents.'' John Keegan ''A wonderful account of the wars of our times.'' William Shawcross, Literary Review ''His memoirs have ...honesty, pace and readability.'' Jeremy Paxman ''The chapters on the Falklands War are ...one of the best things written about warfare in half a century.'' John Simpson, Daily Telegraph ''This memoir is a first-class piece of reportage.'' Jon Swain, Sunday Times