The Battle of Britain tells the extraordinary story of one of the pivotal events of the Second World War - the struggle between British and German air forces in the late summer and autumn of 1940. Exposing many of the myths surrounding the conflict, the book provides answers to important questions: how close did Britain really come to invasion? What were Hitler and Churchill's motives? And what was the battle's real effect on the outcome of the war? Told with great clarity and objectivity, this is a superb introduction to a defining moment in our history.
'No individual British victory after Trafalgar was more decisive in challenging the course of a major war than was the Battle of Britain ... In his carefully argued, clearly explained and impressively documented book ... Richard Overy is at pains to dispose of the myths and expose the real history of what he does not doubt was a great British victory ... the best historical analysis in readable form which has yet appeared on this prime subject' Noble Frankland, The Times Literary Supplement
Découvrez Chroniques du IIIe Reich, le livre de Richard James Overy. Le Troisième Reich est le nom qu'Hitler et le parti nazi donnèrent à cette dictature qui vit le jour en 1933 et se termina, douze ans plus tard, par la destruction totale de l'Allemagne et le suicide d'Hitler. Symbolisé par le personnage emblématique et messianique du Führer, le Troisième Reich fut l'une des périodes centrales de l'ère moderne. Après ses premiers balbutiements dans les années 20, le mouvement d'Hitler parvint à dominer la société allemande dans les années 30, provoquant sa militarisation, la naissance d'un appareil de terreur d'État et une politique de discrimination violente contre les opposants politiques, les " asociaux" et surtout les Juifs. L'histoire du Reich se caractérise par des annexions territoriales, une guerre totale et un génocide. Le résultat fut la défaite complète de l'Allemagne et l'anéantissement de millions d'Européens, un drame historique sans précédent qui hante encore l'Allemagne moderne. Ouvrage informatif et écrit par un éminent spécialiste de la période, Chroniques du Troisième Reich anime de manière saisissante la réalité sanglante de la guerre, des conquêtes et du génocide.
From global wars to the digital revolution, this title lets you explore the world-changing events of the 20th century. It presents the history, the events, the people and the political and cultural milestones that have shaped our world using a fresh approach.
24 August 1939: The fate of the world is hanging in the balance. Hitler has ambitions to invade Poland and hopes Stalin will now help him. The West must try to stop him. If they don't, world war will result.
In this dramatic account Richard Overy re-creates hour-by-hour the last days of peace in 1939, as politicians and the public braced themselves for a war they feared might spell the end of European civilization.
Nothing was predictable or inevitable. The West hoped that Hitler would see sense if they stood firm. Hitler was convinced the West would back down. The one constant feature was the determination of Poland to fight against the armed might of Germany.
Countdown to War brings to life a defining moment in the history of the twentieth century.
'A world-class scholar at the height of his powers . everything is deftly handled - from the German-Soviet pact to the Yalta Conference, from Babi-Yar to the Katyn massacre - without holding up the sweeping narrative' Orlando Figes, The Times In the course of human history there has probably been no more terrible place than Eastern Europe in 1941-5. Estimates of total Soviet military and civilian deaths in the period now stand at more than 25 million. In Russia's War, Richard Overy re-creates the Soviet Union's apocalyptic struggle against Germany from the point of view both of the troops and of the ordinary civilians.
'A dramatic and exciting tale . His set-piece descriptions of such visions of Hell as Stalingrad, the 900-day siege of Leningrad and the crucial battle of Kursk are as fascinating as they are horrifying' Alan Judd, Sunday Times 'Masterly . a vivid account' Robert Service, Independent 'Overy is a first-class military historian . He writes concisely and says what he means to say . Now, we have an authoritative British account that understands both sides, without illusions' Norman Stone, Spectator 'Excellent . Overy tackles this huge, complex and multifaceted story with the vital gifts of clarity and brevity' Antony Beevor, Literary Review
Half a century after their deaths, the dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler still cast a long and terrible shadow over the modern world. They were the most destructive and lethal regimes in history, murdering millions. They fought the largest and costliest war in all history.
Defined by the messianic, iconic figure of Adolf Hitler, the twelve years of the Third Reich were one of the pivotal periods of the modern age. From small beginnings in the 1920s, the Nazi Party rose to a position of absolute power in Germany, bringing with it the militarization of society, the apparatus of state terror and vicious discrimination against political opponents, the gypsies, homosexuals, and, above all, the Jews. Hitler's ambition thrust the world into a destructive and bloody conflict that led to the annihilation of millions of Europeans and, eventually, the total collapse of his regime.The Third Reich: A Chronicle charts the rise and fall of Nazi power in a concise and compelling narrative of the period, amplified by extensive quotations from documents, letters, diaries and oral testimony. Authoritative, informative and sumptuously illustrated, written by a scholar steeped in knowledge of the period, The Third Reich: A Chronicle brings the bloody realities of war, conquest and genocide vividly to life.
British intellectual life between the wars stood at the heart of modernity. The Morbid Age opens a window on to this creative but anxious era, the golden age of the public intellectual and scientist: Arnold Toynbee, Aldous and Julian Huxley, H. G. Wells, Marie Stopes and a host of others.
Yet, as Richard Overy argues, a striking characteristic of so many of the ideas that emerged from this new age - from eugenics to Freud's unconscious, to modern ideas of pacifism and world government - was the fear that the West was facing a possibly terminal crisis of civilization. Ultimately, Overy shows, the coming of war was almost welcomed as a way to resolve the contradictions and anxieties of this period, a war in which it was believed civilization would be either saved or utterly destroyed.
The Allied victory in 1945 - though comprehensive - was far from inevitable. By 1942 almost the entire resources of continental Europe were in German hands and Japan had wiped out the western colonial presence in Asia. Democracy appeared to have had its day.
In this remarkable study, Richard Overy provides a reinterpretation of the war through an account of the decisive military campaigns that created the astonishing revival in Allied fortunes. He also explores the deeper factors that determined success and failure: industrial stength, fighting ability, the skills of leaders and the moral contrasts between the two sides.
Today the modern world is once more in the throes of painful transformation. It is essential to establish why and how the last great war was won. Richard Overy casts a brilliant light on the most important turning-point of the modern age.
The object of this book is to introduce readers to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors and excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever and wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare and world history have evolved.
Choosing just one hundred battles from recorded human history is a challenge. Not just because it is necessary to cover almost 6,000 years of history, but because men have fought each other almost continuously for millennia. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war may be disappointed at what has had to be left out. However, each of the 100 memorable battles described shows both how the nature of armed combat has changed over human history, and also how, despite changes in technology, organisation or ideas, many things have remained the same.
It is an old adage that you can win a battle but lose a war. The battles featured here almost always resulted in victory for one side or another, but the victor did not necessarily win the war. Some battles are decisive in that broader historical sense, others are not. The further back in time, the more likely it is that an enemy could be finished off in one blow. The wars of the modern age, between major states, have involved repeated battles until one side was battered into submission. Some of the great generals of the recent past - Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Erich von Manstein - have been on the losing side but are remembered nonetheless for their generalship.
Some on the winning side have all but disappeared from the history books or from public memory. Equally, in many battles, the issue is not victory or defeat, but what the battle can tell us about the history of warfare itself. New weapons, new tactics, new ways of organising armed forces can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle. But so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. That is why the book has been divided up into clear themes which apply equally to the battles of the ancient world as they do to the battles of today.
As Professor Richard Overy laments: ''Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history, messy, bloody and real. That, at least, has not changed in 6,000 years.''
- 4 août 1939 : le destin du monde se joue. Hitler conçoit le projet d'envahir la Pologne et espère le soutien de Staline. Les puissances de l'Ouest doivent l'en empêcher. Si elles ne le font pas, c'est la guerre.Voici le récit, bref et percutant, des derniers jours de paix de 1939, alors que les politiques et les opinions publiques redoutent une guerre dans laquelle ils craignent de voir disparaître la civilisation européenne. Comme le montre Richard Overy, l'issue n'était ni totalement prévisible ni totalement inéluctable. Moments d'hésitation et de confrontation, rôle des services secrets, c'est un scénario dramatique que reconstitue ici l'auteur, avec, au coeur du tableau, la Pologne, déterminée à affronter l'ennemi allemand.
- Né en 1947, Richard Overy a enseigné à Cambridge et à Londres. Il est aujourd'hui professeur d'histoire contemporaine à l'université d'Exeter. Spécialiste de la Seconde Guerre mondiale et du IIIe Reich, il est l'auteur de plus de vingt livres, dont, traduit en français, un Atlas historique du IIIe Reich (Autrement, 1999).
Sous les bombes Nouvelle histoire de la guerre aérienne Les chiffres sont ahurissants : au cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, 600000 civils européens trouvèrent la mort lors des bombardements et plus d'un million d'autres furent grièvement blessés. Dans cette sombre comptabilité, la France, où l'on dénombre le plus fort tonnage de bombes larguées, occupe une place particulière. Des villes entières furent dévastées sous les bombes alliées, parfois même rasées à l'instar de Vire, Saint-Lô, Lisieux, Coutances mais aussi Royan ou encore Le Havre. La terre semblait en éruption, selon le mot d'un pilote de la RAF qui avait bombardé Caen... Puis le silence retomba durant des années. Le souvenir aussi était tabou. Tant de questions restaient en suspens, parmi lesquelles, la plus cruciale : fallait-il bombarder l'Europe ? Pour y répondre, l'historien Richard Overy a mené des recherches dans tous les pays des anciens belligérants. Dans un travail inédit et résolument neuf, il s'interroge sur les commandements militaires, les stratégies, les différents raids (le Blitz, Hambourg, Dresde, Monte Cassino). Si les bombardements, comme il le souligne, étaient soumis aux impératifs politiques (Churchill en était partisan) et militaires, ils ne furent jamais un moyen de gagner la guerre. L'historien raconte le quotidien terrifiant des aviateurs sous pression maximale, rappelle les grandes heures de la défense passive, l'héroïsme des civils face à la précision approximative des bombardiers. Pourtant les attaques meurtrières échouèrent à détruire l'économie ennemie, plus encore à déprimer les civils. Ce constat de l'échec se double de la question morale des frappes contre les populations. La destruction à l'aveugle, l'acharnement manifeste à tuer lors de certains bombardements sont au coeur de cette histoire que l'auteur a voulu, de bout en bout, très humaine.
Le compte à rebours du déclenchement de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
24 août 1939 : le destin du monde se joue. Hitler conçoit le projet d'envahir la Pologne et espère le soutien de Staline. Les puissances de l'Ouest doivent l'en empêcher. Si elles ne le font pas, c'est la guerre.
Voici le récit, heure par heure, des derniers jours de paix de 1939, alors que politiques et opinions publiques redoutent un conflit dans lequel ils craignent de voir disparaître la civilisation européenne.
L'issue de ce scénario dramatique n'était ni totalement prévisible ni totalement inéluctable. Moments d'hésitation, moments de confrontation, rôle des services secrets qui nourrissent tour à tour les espoirs les plus contradictoires : sur cette scène complexe où le XXe siècle s'apprête à basculer dans l'horreur, une seule certitude, la détermination de la Pologne à affronter la puissance militaire allemande.
AGENDA
