A Telegraph Best History Book of 2023

An astonishing achievement by Antony Beevor. An intimate history of the most significant month of World War II, as experienced by those who lived it, based entirely on diaries, letters, and memoirs.

At the beginning of November 1942, it seemed that the Axis powers could win the war; by the end of that month, it was apparent that it was just a matter of time before they lost.

In the meantime, events such as El Alamein, Guadalcanal, the landing in French North Africa, the Japanese retreat in New Guinea, and the Soviet encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad occurred. In this innovative and immersive historical work, Peter Englund reduces these epic-scale events to their essential dimension: the individual experience.

In thirty unforgettable days, we meet characters such as a Soviet infantryman at Stalingrad, an Italian truck driver in the North African desert, a partisan in the forests of Belarus, a gunner on a British bomber, a twelve-year-old girl in Shanghai, a student in Paris, a housewife in Long Island, a prisoner in Treblinka, Albert Camus, Vasily Grossman, and Vera Brittain. We also witness the launch of the SS James Oglethorpe, the fate of U-604, the construction of the first nuclear reactor, and the production of Casablanca.

Not since Englund's acclaimed work "The Beauty and the Sorrow" has such a dramatic period of human history been presented in its full breadth and emotional range.

'Thought-provoking' SUNDAY TIMES

'Thoroughly worth reading' TELEGRAPH

Pages: 496, Dimensions: 16x16cm