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About The Book

Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published.

Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought—and whose outcome was in greater doubt—than readers might imagine. This is the war that Americans at the home front would have read about had they had access to the previously censored testimony of the soldiers on which Miller builds his gripping narrative.

Miller covers the entire war—on land, at sea, and in the air—and provides new coverage of the brutal island fighting in the Pacific, the bomber war over Europe, the liberation of the death camps, and the contributions of African Americans and other minorities. He concludes with a suspenseful, never-before-told story of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, based on interviews with the men who flew the mission that ended the war.

About The Authors

Photograph by Austin Medina

Donald L. Miller is the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History Emeritus at Lafayette College and author of ten books, including Vicksburg, and Masters of the Air, currently being made into a television series by Tom Hanks. He has hosted, coproduced, or served as historical consultant for more than thirty television documentaries and has written for The New York TimesThe Washington Post, and other publications.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 11, 2010)
  • Length: 704 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781439128220

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Raves and Reviews

David McCullough Author of John Adams A major publishing event. Donald Miller's additions to the original account are outstanding, and the total effect is one few readers will ever forget.

James Bradley Author of Flags of Our Fathers This is the book that deserves to be titled The Story of World War II....If you seek the book that best conveys the "you are there" experience of history's greatest conflict, you hold that book in your hands.

Martin Blumenson Author of Patton Beautifully done. Donald Miller has made combat, wherever it occurred in World War II, alive and immediate.

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