“A World at Arms” by Gerhard L. Weinberg is my preferred single book textbook (as a reference) on World War II.
It is a suitably weighty volume on WW2, and does well in looking at the war from a global perspective, it’s extensive bibliography and notes are outstanding. In comparison with Churchill’s “The Second World War”—in it’s single volume edition, Weinburg’s writing isn’t as readable but does tend to be less personal. Churchill on the other hand is quite personal, when reading his tome, it’s almost as if he is sitting there having a chat with you. Churchill is quite frank in revealing his thought processes for making decisions, in fact LWer’s might particularly enjoy reading Churchills’ account for that reason. Weinberg’s A World at Arms is better at looking at multiple view points of the war, whereas Churchill tends to present everything from his point of view. “The Politics of War” by David Day is an Australian centric view point of WW2, it stands as an excellent reference from that perspective, but isn’t able to provide an overall picture equal to either Weinburg or Churchill.
World War II.
“A World at Arms” by Gerhard L. Weinberg is my preferred single book textbook (as a reference) on World War II.
It is a suitably weighty volume on WW2, and does well in looking at the war from a global perspective, it’s extensive bibliography and notes are outstanding. In comparison with Churchill’s “The Second World War”—in it’s single volume edition, Weinburg’s writing isn’t as readable but does tend to be less personal. Churchill on the other hand is quite personal, when reading his tome, it’s almost as if he is sitting there having a chat with you. Churchill is quite frank in revealing his thought processes for making decisions, in fact LWer’s might particularly enjoy reading Churchills’ account for that reason. Weinberg’s A World at Arms is better at looking at multiple view points of the war, whereas Churchill tends to present everything from his point of view. “The Politics of War” by David Day is an Australian centric view point of WW2, it stands as an excellent reference from that perspective, but isn’t able to provide an overall picture equal to either Weinburg or Churchill.