Most Popular Books by Max Hastings

This book traces to its historical roots the explosive uprising situation of Northern Ireland. It provides first-hand, behind the barricades account of the bitter Protestant/Catholic clashes in Belfast, Bogside, and Derry, and analyzes the desperate struggle for power in high Ulster government circles. Filled with balances, perceptive profiles of leaders and key figures in both camps, this book of the times clearly illuminates the bewildering landscape of Irish politics in a narrative which resembles the force and urgency of a battlefront dispatch. It presents a compassionate, sobering, and scrupulously accurate report on a tragic situation whose seeds of hate and bitterness were sown centuries ago, and for which a permanent solution was hard to forsee. -- Publisher description

Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded. In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors. Combining in-depth research with Hasting’s well-honed insights, The Abyss is a human history that unfolds on a wide, colorful canvas. As the action moves back and forth from Moscow to Washington, DC, to Havana, Hastings seeks to explain, as much as to describe, the attitudes and conduct of the Soviets, Cubans, and Americans, and to recreate the tension and heightened fears of countless innocent bystanders whose lives hung in the balance. Reflecting on the outcome of these events, he reveals how the aftermath of this momentous crisis continues to reverberate today. Powerful, and riveting, filled with compelling detail and told with narrative flair, The Abyss is history at its finest.

Renowned historian Max Hastings recreates one of the most thrilling events of World War II: Operation Pedestal, the British action to save its troops from starvation on Malta—an action-packed tale of courage, fortitude, loss, and triumph against all odds. In 1940, Hitler had two choices when it came to the Mediterranean region: stay out, or commit sufficient forces to expel the British from the Middle East. Against his generals’ advice, the Fuhrer committed a major strategic blunder. He ordered the Wehrmacht to seize Crete, allowing the longtime British bastion of Malta to remain in Allied hands. Over the fall of 1941, the Royal Navy and RAF, aided by British intelligence, used the island to launch a punishing campaign against the Germans, sinking more than 75 percent of their supply ships destined for North Africa. But by spring 1942, the British lost their advantage. In April and May, the Luftwaffe dropped more bombs on Malta than London received in the blitz. A succession of British attempts to supply and reinforce the island by convoy during the spring and summer of 1942 failed. British submarines and surface warships were withdrawn, and the remaining forces were on the brink of starvation. Operation Pedestal chronicles the ensuing British mission to save those troops. Over twelve days in August, German and Italian forces faced off against British air and naval fleets in one of the fiercest battles of the war, while ships packed with supplies were painstakingly divided and dispersed. In the end only a handful of the Allied ships made it, most important among them the SS Ohio, carrying the much-needed fuel to the men on Malta. As Hastings makes clear, while the Germans claimed victory, it was the British who ultimately prevailed, for Malta remained a crucial asset that helped lead to the Nazis’ eventual defeat. While the Royal Navy never again attempted an operation on such scale, Hasting argues that without that August convoy the British on Malta would not have survived. In the cruel accountancy of war, the price was worth paying.

Within Western culture, World War Two continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination for generations unborn when it took place. The obvious explanation is that it was the greatest and most terrible event in human history. Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity. Among citizens of modern democracies to whom serious hardship and collective peril are unknown, the tribulations which hundreds of millions endured between 1939 and 1945 are almost beyond comprehension. Hastings tells the story of the war in a clear and compelling narrative, ranging across a vast canvas from the agony of Poland in 1939 and the horrors of the Soviet front to the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan in August 1945. This is a book which shows vividly what war meant for individuals from allied soldiers, sailors and airmen, to SS killers, to civilians caught up in the war like British housewives who endured the Blitz and the citizens of Leningrad who suffered through a siege of almost unimaginable horror.

Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus Reviews Now in paperback, one of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force''s 617 Squadron. The attack on Nazi Germany''s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force''s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story--and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron--has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis''s mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams--the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron''s valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses--making the mission a success. An example of Churchill''s "military theatre" at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology--a story to be told for generations to come. Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.

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.

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.

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.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘His masterpiece’ Antony Beevor, Spectator ‘A masterful performance’ Sunday Times ‘By far the best book on the Vietnam War’ Gerald Degroot, The Times, Book of the Year

A brand new history of the Dambusters raid from best-selling and critically acclaimed military historian, Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF''s 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain''s national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who led the raid. In the 21st Century, however, he urges that we should see the dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew''s heroism was entirely real, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the ''bouncing bombs''. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised as ruthlessly as they did about the entire bomber offensive. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Mohne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis'' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. He argues that what modern Germans call the Mohnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur ''Bomber'' Harris gained much of the public credit, though he bitterly opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. Harris also made perhaps the operation''s biggest mistake - failure to launch a conventional attack on the huge post-raid repair operation which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches on Ruhr industry. Here once again is a dramatic retake on familiar history by a master of the art. Hastings sets the Dams Raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.

Para muitos historiadores, nenhum outro acontecimento da história da humanidade teve o impacto da Segunda Guerra Mundial, que entre 1939 e 1945 abalou as vidas de centenas de milhões de pessoas em todo o planeta. Jornalista especializado na cobertura de conflitos, com vinte livros publicados, o inglês Max Hastings traça, em apenas um volume, um vasto painel da guerra em todos os fronts, colocando em primeiro plano o testemunho de pessoas comuns, obtido em cartas, diários, livros de memórias e depoimentos. Estudo monumental e abrangente do conflito, Inferno não se limita a fazer uma simples narrativa da sequência de eventos trágicos, desde a invasão da Polônia até a explosão das bombas de Hiroshima e Nagasaki, mas revela ao leitor do século XXI como foi viver, lutar e morrer em um mundo em guerra. “Hastings tem um incrível domínio sobre o grande panorama estratégico da guerra, demonstrando como a combinação de sangue russo, indústria americana e incompetência germânica tornou inevitável a vitória dos Aliados. Mas são as histórias das pessoas comuns que tornam este livro tão envolvente...É a obra que Hastings nasceu para escrever.” Sunday Times “Uma nova visão histórica, original e necessária, que constitui de muitas formas o coroamento da obra de seu autor. Ex correspondente de guerra que testemunhou conflitos armados em numerosas zonas de perigo, Hastings encara o combate de uma forma sóbria e sem romantismo... Ele escreve com elegância, fluência e autoridade... Inferno é um livro magnífico.” New York Times

«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

Een meesterwerk over het jaar 1914, het jaar dat Europa bijna vernietigd werd.

De meest spectaculaire raid van de Tweede Wereldoorlog

«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.

A two-book collection of Max Hastings’ bestselling works about the 20th century’s most terrible global conflicts.

Tijdens de Koreaanse Oorlog sneuvelden per vierkante meter meer soldaten dan tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Toch noemt men deze oorlog vaak ''de vergeten oorlog'' omdat hij in de schaduw stond van WO II en de Vietnamoorlog. De oorlog in Korea spleet het schiereiland in twee delen die tot op de dag van vandaag officieel in oorlog met elkaar verkeren, met grote internationale spanningen tot gevolg. De Koreaanse Oorlog neemt ons mee naar dit bloedige conflict dat de Zuid-Koreaanse onafhankelijkheid na de communistische invasie in 1950 moest herstellen. Aan de hand van persoonlijke interviews met meer dan 200 veteranen - inclusief Chinese - brengt Max Hastings de verhalen van de officieren en soldaten van deze strijd tot leven. Daarmee schetst hij niet alleen een waarachtig beeld van de oorlog, maar laat hij ook zien wat we hadden kunnen leren van deze oorlog, als prelude op de Vietnamoorlog.

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.

Nella notte tra il 16 e il 17 maggio 1943 uno stormo di aerei, il 617 o squadrone composto da centotrenta aviatori britannici, canadesi e australiani, un americano e due neozelandesi, sorvolò la Germania nordoccidentale e distrusse le dighe dei bacini idrici dell’Eder e della Möhne con delle “bombe rimbalzanti”, rovesciandone a valle le acque. Il raid, noto come Operazione Chastise (Castigo), costò la vita a ben cinquantatré dei giovani aviatori che l’eseguirono e, nel Regno Unito dell’immediato dopoguerra, fu subito annoverato tra «quei racconti a sfondo storico – al pari di re Artù o di Robin Hood – che si sottraggono a ogni tentativo di rilettura critica da parte degli studiosi», come scrisse il biografo del comandante di stormo Guy Gibson. Nel 1955, I guastatori delle dighe, il film britannico dedicato all’impresa, fu perciò accolto con entusiasmo dall’opinione pubblica, convinta che il raid non avesse lasciato vittime se non gli eroici cinquantatré giovani aviatori. In realtà, nell’Operazione Chastise, nota in Germania come Möhnekatastrophe, perirono circa millequattrocento persone, quasi tutte civili, quasi tutte donne di nazionalità francese, polacca, russa e ucraina: più che in qualunque precedente attacco condotto dalla RAF sul Reich. Una strage di civili, per la maggior parte vittime di Adolf Hitler, che si inquadra nella controversa offensiva condotta dagli Alleati con i bombardieri durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Questo libro nasce dall’esigenza di raccontare di nuovo, e di riconsiderare, la vicenda dell’Operazione Chastise con la speranza di offrire una nuova prospettiva. Un compito arduo per Max Hastings, che conserva ancora «il timore reverenziale provato da bambino per i piloti che avevano fatto esondare la Möhne e l’Eder». Un compito, tuttavia, ineludibile per uno storico che voglia accertare i fatti, e stabilire in questo caso «se la straordinaria storia dell’Operazione Chastise – l’impatto che ebbe sulla seconda guerra mondiale a fronte delle conseguenze umane – si lasci redimere dalla gloria». «Un eroe della Resistenza norvegese, Knut Lier-Hansen, nel 1948 scrisse delle parole che mi risuonano in mente ogni volta che mi accingo a raccontare un conflitto: “Sì, le guerre possono portare con sé avventure che scaldano il cuore, ma la vera natura della guerra è fatta di innumerevoli tragedie personali, di pena, sperpero e sacrificio, di una malvagità totale che la gloria non redime”».

O relato mais detalhado, original e humano de um conflito de proporções épicas e resultados catastróficos Cristalizada como um dos conflitos armados mais emblemáticos da história moderna e uma consequência da polarização criada pela Guerra Fria, a Guerra do Vietnã resultou em 3 milhões de mortes estimadas. Dividido entre o norte ― apoiado pela União Soviética ― e o sul ― de aliados anticomunistas, como Estados Unidos e Austrália ―, o país teve sua unidade nacional em xeque durante três décadas. Mas, embora muitos pensem nessa guerra como um evento trágico para os norte-americanos, o jornalista e historiador Max Hastings o remonta como uma épica tragédia vietnamita, em que o lado vitorioso também saiu perdedor: cada baixa no exército ianque representava a morte de quarenta vietnamitas. Dando voz a uma vasta gama de personagens reais, Hastings questiona se algum dos lados merecia mesmo ter saído vencedor. Fruto de anos de pesquisa, baseado em memórias e num imenso volume de documentos, Vietnã é um livro essencial ao descrever elementos que podem estar no centro de muitos conflitos atuais e futuros.

Il leggendario sbarco in Normandia, quel 6 giugno 1944 che nell’immaginario collettivo è rimasto come il D-Day, aveva nome in codice “Overlord”. Lacerando il sipario della retorica e degli interessi di parte, Hastings ne ricostruisce la storia completa, dai preparativi alla faticosa battaglia, incerta fino all’ultimo, per la conquista dell’entroterra, rendendo giustizia all’esercito tedesco, schiacciato tra i contrordini di Hitler e la superiorità numerica degli alleati, ma ancora determinato a combattere per contendere ogni centimetro all’avanzata alleata. E rendendo inoltre giustizia ai reparti inglesi e americani, che emergono come i veri vincitori dell’operazione Overlord, e cioè come coloro che seppero spesso rimediare col proprio spirito d’iniziativa ai risvolti non sempre edificanti delle decisioni degli stati maggiori. In quest’opera, una sapiente miscela di appassionato interesse e di lucida obiettività, l’esperto di storia militare troverà una documentazione ineccepibile e il grande pubblico rivivrà quei giorni come in un romanzo, dove gli eventi che decisero le sorti del mondo si intrecciano ai piccoli episodi che ne compongono il mosaico. «Il reportage di Max Hastings della battaglia è degno di stare accanto a quello dei migliori giornalisti e scrittori che hanno assistito in prima persona a questi eventi... Un omaggio alla sua abilità come storico». The New York Times Book Review «Un resoconto brillante e conciso». The Washington Post Book World

Packed with insight and terrific spy stories, this masterly book looks at the secret war on a global basis, bringing together the British, American, German, Russian and Japanese histories. In ''The Secret War'', Max Hastings examines the espionage and intelligence machines of all sides in World War II, and the impact of spies, code-breakers and partisan operations on events. Written on a global scale, the book brings together accounts from British, American, German, Russian and Japanese sources to tell the story of a secret war waged unceasingly by men and women often far from the battlefields but whose actions profoundly influenced the outcome. Returning to the Second World War for the first time since his best-selling ''All Hell Let Loose'', Hastings weaves into a ''big picture'' framework, the human stories of spies and intelligence officers who served their respective masters. Told through a series of snapshots of key moments, the book looks closely at Soviet espionage operations which dwarfed those of every other belligerent in scale, as well as the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park - the greatest intelligence achievement of the conflict - with many more surprising and unfamiliar tales of treachery, deception, betrayal and incompetence by spies of Axis, Allied or indeterminate loyalty.

Illustrated with two hundred color stills of film footage of the Allied Armies'' advance through Europe

I denne boken om annen verdenskrig presenterer Max Hastings den militære historien, samtidig som han lar vanlige menneskers opplevelser og øyenvitneskildringer være bokens bærebjelke. Her er det de sivile og soldater fra hele verden som beskriver redslene krigen medførte. Hastings har også skrevet boken "Armageddon" (2008).