SCORCHED EARTH: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF WWII

A BOOK THAT CHALLENGES THE VIEW THAT THERE'S NOTHING NEW TO SAY ABOUT WWII

- Paul Thomas Chamberlin

Written in an engaging and fluent style, Scorched Earth is as impressive as it is long. At over 600 pages, the engaging mixture of narrative, analysis, strategy and eye-witness testimony makes compelling and informative reading. This is a detailed survey of the origins and key events of a global conflict that shaped our modern world, and is rich with detail and insights. Chamberlin examines how 1919's Treaty of Versailles, signed at the end of the 'war to end all wars', did not end the dying; in the new states and mandates formed by the division of territories once held by the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires, over four million people died in civil and ethnic conflicts in the next five years. It was a toll higher than that suffered by Britain, France and the USA in the Great War and was ominously prescient of what was to follow.