
Strategy and the Second World War
How the War Was Won, and Lost
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $14.52
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Roger Davis
-
By:
-
Jeremy Black
About this listen
A concise, accessible account of strategy and the Second World War. How the war was won...and lost.
In 1941, the Second World War became global, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States.
In this timely book, which fills a real gap, Black engages with the strategic issues of the time - as they developed chronologically and interacted - and relates these to subsequent debates about the choices made, revealing their continued political resonances.
Beginning with appeasement and the Soviet-German pact as key strategic means, Black examines the consequences of the fall of France for the strategies of all the powers. He shows how Allied strategy-making was more effective at the Anglo-American level than with the Soviet Union, not only for ideological and political reasons but also because the Americans and British had a better grasp of the global dimension.
He explores how German and Japanese strategies evolved as the war went badly for the Axis powers, and discusses the extent to which, seeking to mould the post-war world, informed Allied strategic choices from 1943 onwards and the role these played in post-war politics, notably in the Cold War.
Strategy was a crucial tool not only for conducting the war; it remains the key to understanding it today.
©2021 Jeremy Black (P)2021 Hachette Audio UKListeners also enjoyed...
-
Infantry Attacks
- By: Erwin Rommel
- Narrated by: Todd Belcher
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infantry Attacks is a classic text in the field of military strategy. Written by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, it was first published in 1937 as a journal-esque chronicle of the author's experiences in World War I, and the lessons he learned there. In it, he provides detailed accounts of a variety of military strategies that rely on speed, deception, and deep penetration into enemy territory to intimidate and surprise opposing forces.
-
-
The best book about World War 1
- By Robert D. Blunt on 03-31-23
By: Erwin Rommel
-
The Battle of Britain
- Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 26 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world, including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle.
-
-
The battle up to The Battle of Britain
- By Chiefkent on 11-07-17
By: James Holland
-
Tank Warfare
- By: Jeremy Black
- Narrated by: Simon Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the battlefield in the 20th century was dominated by a handful of developments. Foremost of these was the introduction and refinement of tanks. In Tank Warfare, prominent military historian Jeremy Black offers a comprehensive global account of the history of tanks and armored warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
-
Quite Good
- By David A on 10-31-21
By: Jeremy Black
-
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
-
-
Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
-
The Strategy of Denial
- American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict
- By: Elbridge A. Colby
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of US defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America's defense must change to address China's growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America's goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests.
-
-
The Strategy of the Warring States Period for 2030
- By Kenneth on 03-17-25
-
Target Tehran
- How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East
- By: Yonah Jeremy Bob, Ilan Evyatar
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yonah Bob and Ilan Evyatar describe how Israel has used cyberwarfare, targeted assassinations, and sabotage of Iranian facilities to great effect, sometimes in cooperation with the United States. Even as it takes lethal action, Israel has managed to alter the politics of the Middle East, culminating in the Abraham Accords of 2020. Arab states such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel, and the holy grail of normalization with Saudi Arabia may yet be achieved.
-
-
Couldn’t walk away !
- By ADAM on 01-10-24
By: Yonah Jeremy Bob, and others
-
Infantry Attacks
- By: Erwin Rommel
- Narrated by: Todd Belcher
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infantry Attacks is a classic text in the field of military strategy. Written by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, it was first published in 1937 as a journal-esque chronicle of the author's experiences in World War I, and the lessons he learned there. In it, he provides detailed accounts of a variety of military strategies that rely on speed, deception, and deep penetration into enemy territory to intimidate and surprise opposing forces.
-
-
The best book about World War 1
- By Robert D. Blunt on 03-31-23
By: Erwin Rommel
-
The Battle of Britain
- Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 26 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world, including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle.
-
-
The battle up to The Battle of Britain
- By Chiefkent on 11-07-17
By: James Holland
-
Tank Warfare
- By: Jeremy Black
- Narrated by: Simon Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the battlefield in the 20th century was dominated by a handful of developments. Foremost of these was the introduction and refinement of tanks. In Tank Warfare, prominent military historian Jeremy Black offers a comprehensive global account of the history of tanks and armored warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
-
Quite Good
- By David A on 10-31-21
By: Jeremy Black
-
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
-
-
Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
-
The Strategy of Denial
- American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict
- By: Elbridge A. Colby
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of US defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America's defense must change to address China's growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America's goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests.
-
-
The Strategy of the Warring States Period for 2030
- By Kenneth on 03-17-25
-
Target Tehran
- How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East
- By: Yonah Jeremy Bob, Ilan Evyatar
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yonah Bob and Ilan Evyatar describe how Israel has used cyberwarfare, targeted assassinations, and sabotage of Iranian facilities to great effect, sometimes in cooperation with the United States. Even as it takes lethal action, Israel has managed to alter the politics of the Middle East, culminating in the Abraham Accords of 2020. Arab states such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel, and the holy grail of normalization with Saudi Arabia may yet be achieved.
-
-
Couldn’t walk away !
- By ADAM on 01-10-24
By: Yonah Jeremy Bob, and others
-
Command and Control
- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.
-
-
A miracle that we escaped the Cold War alive....
- By A reader on 02-16-14
By: Eric Schlosser
-
The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
-
-
A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
-
Conquistadores
- A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest
- By: Fernando Cervantes
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus' first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers who took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares.
-
-
A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest
- By Chencheno111 on 03-19-22
-
Crash Dive: The Complete Series (Books 1-6)
- By: Craig DiLouie
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 29 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Crash Dive: The Complete Series chronicles the adventures of Charlie Harrison as he fights the Imperial Japanese Navy during WW2. Gripping, action-packed, authentic, and filled with larger-than-life men and women of the Greatest Generation, Crash Dive puts you aboard a submarine during the war. You'll stand alongside Charlie as he proves himself time and again by keeping his wits and being decisive in crisis, though each encounter leaves him more heavily scarred for it.
-
-
great series
- By Old Diamond Jim on 12-30-19
By: Craig DiLouie
-
Enemy at the Gates
- The Battle for Stalingrad
- By: William Craig
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
-
-
An Unforgettable and Haunting Read
- By Jean on 02-03-16
By: William Craig
-
The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941
- The War in The West, Volume 1
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 27 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For seven decades, our understanding of World War II has been shaped by a standard narrative built on conventional wisdom, propaganda, the dramatic but narrow experiences of soldiers on the ground, and an early generation of historians. For his new history, James Holland has spent over 12 years unearthing new research, recording original testimony, and visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible.
-
-
Good Book painfully read
- By richard on 01-21-16
By: James Holland
-
Conflict
- The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
- By: David Petraeus, Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: David Petraeus, Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.
-
-
The Story of My Life
- By Nice guy on 03-06-24
By: David Petraeus, and others
-
Superforecasting
- The Art and Science of Prediction
- By: Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight.
-
-
Great for Experts
- By Michael on 02-20-17
By: Philip Tetlock, and others
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
- Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire
- By: Jonathan M. Katz
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time. Best-selling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Wherever the flag went, “The Fighting Quaker” went - serving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II.
-
-
nostalgic melancholy sadness of yet another time
- By Robert Eaton Jr. on 01-29-22
By: Jonathan M. Katz
-
Decision at Sea
- Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives - and the fate of nations - hanging in the balance.
-
-
Interesting book...but not great
- By Anonymous User on 11-22-20
By: Craig L. Symonds
-
The Panzer Killers
- The Untold Story of a Fighting General and His Spearhead Tank Division's Charge into the Third Reich
- By: Daniel P. Bolger
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two months after D-Day, the Allies found themselves in a stalemate in Normandy, having suffered enormous casualties attempting to push through hedgerow country. Troops were spent, and American tankers, lacking the tactics and leadership to deal with the terrain, were losing their spirit. General George Patton and the other top US commanders needed an officer who knew how to break the impasse and roll over the Germans - they needed one man with the grit and the vision to take the war all the way to the Rhine. Patton and his peers selected Maurice Rose.
-
-
Pronunciation counts
- By Brian Shivers on 08-22-21
By: Daniel P. Bolger
-
Tank Battles of the Cold War 1948-1991
- By: Anthony Tucker-Jones
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Anthony Tucker-Jones shows in this wide-ranging history, for most of the Cold War the tank retained its preeminence on the battlefield. The Arab-Israeli wars witnessed some of the biggest tank battles of all time, and tanks played key roles in conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan as well as in the Iran-Iraq War and the wars fought between India and Pakistan. But then in the mid-1960s anti-tank weapons became ever deadlier.
What listeners say about Strategy and the Second World War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David A
- 10-31-21
Interesting Read
I have read multiple books by Jeremy Black and have been somewhat disappointed.
They were not bad but not good.
This book is well written on an immensely sprawling topic.
That is no easy task and Mr. Black has some good insights.
I followed this book with another of his books Tank Warfare which I also thought was well done.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!