Review by Booklist Review
Swedish historian Englund's The Beauty and the Sorrow amplified and changed the history of WWI. Now, he applies these same talents to the history of WWII, focusing on a single month. As November 1942, began, the Axis powers seemed to be marching to inevitable victory. But by the end of the month, fortunes had turned, events giving evidence that the beleaguered Allies were going to prevail. Englund uses the diaries, journals, and memoirs of more than three dozen people who lived through these 30 days: a Japanese destroyer commander, a German infantry officer at Stalingrad, a Long Island housewife, an enslaved Japanese "comfort woman" in Malaysia, an inmate in Treblinka's death camp, a Leningrad poet, and more. Accounts from the front reveal intimate details, such as how both Japanese and American troops could sense each other's presence by smell. Using present tense, Englund lends immediacy and potency to these extraordinary wartime accounts and includes photographs of each subject. The plethora of narrators can confuse at times, and those looking for a more typical war history of politics and grand strategy will be disappointed. This is history seen from beneath--ordinary individuals in wartime, both acting and being acted upon.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Swedish historian Englund takes a captivating firsthand look at a pivotal month of WWII by drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of 39 people who lived through it--the same approach he utilized in The Beauty and the Sorrow, his 2012 study of WWI. Over the course of November 1942, the momentum toward victory shifted away from the Axis powers and to the Allies: U.S. troops landed in North Africa; the British defeated the Germans in Egypt; the Soviets trapped the German army in Stalingrad; and the Japanese suffered defeat in Guadalcanal and New Guinea. Englund's subjects, who document aspects of this turning of the tides, include Sophie Scholl, a German university student leading a secret war against the Nazis; Mun Okchu, an 18-year-old Korean woman forced to work as a sex slave for the Japanese army in Burma; and Adelbert Holl, a German officer embedded behind enemy lines in Russia. There are also such well-known figures as Albert Camus, living outside Lyons, France, while recovering from tuberculosis and finishing his novel The Plague, and Humphrey Bogart, waiting in Hollywood to shoot the new ending of Casablanca as news of U.S. troops in Africa dominates headlines. This gripping and propulsive account, expertly translated by Graves in lyrical prose, recreates the daily uncertainty of war as experienced by regular people with limited information and few resources. It's a monumental work of history. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Unlike other histories of World War II, Englund focuses on one critical month, as lived by military members and civilian residents of many nations. His earlier book, The Beauty and the Sorrow, produced this sort of granular treatment for World War I. It is an effective method, as each episode runs less than a page and shifts to another scene happening around the same time. Showcasing the war at this level reveals that even participants in decisive battles seldom realized that the tide of the war was turning. In North Africa, around Stalingrad, on Guadalcanal, and at sea, Axis forces were defeated for the first time. Diary excerpts and Englund's descriptions also recount how the war upended lives. Vera Brittain, Albert Camus, and Vasily Grossman, among the 40 subjects of the book, were swept along. Soldiers, sailors, and aircrew endured and risked much. American civilians, far from battlefields or bombing raids, coped with rationing and blackouts. Englund's extensive footnotes clarify some situations, but readers may find that it distracts from the narratives. VERDICT A kaleidoscope of wartime impressions on four continents and three oceans. Englund has produced a fascinating perspective on one of humanity's most global conflicts.--David R. Conn
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A meticulous chronicle of ordinary people in the extreme circumstances of war. When looking at the epic sweep of World War II, it is easy to forget that the big picture involves millions of personal experiences. Englund, a member of the Swedish Academy and winner of the August Prize, draws on diaries, journals, memoirs, and records to delve into the lives of those who lived through the war. He covers the gamut from battle-hardened soldiers to home-front civilians, from a concentration-camp inmate to a scientist working on the Manhattan Project. The frame for the narrative is the month of November 1942, which the author sees as the pivotal point in the war. After that, with the tide turning at Guadalcanal, Stalingrad, and in North Africa, it was just a question of time for the Axis countries. This is a massive undertaking, ably translated by Graves, who worked with Englund on a previous book, The Beauty and the Sorrow, which similarly looked at World War I. The tone of this book is unremittingly grim, and some of the most heartrending stories are those of civilians who were swept up by the flood. One of the most painful is that of Mun Okchu, a young Korean woman forced into sex slavery by the Japanese army. Amazingly, she survived the protracted ordeal. Englund deserves admiration for bringing such an impressive body of research together, but the text is sometimes difficult to follow. The narrative, set out chronologically, leaps from one place to another and between characters. With this disjointed structure, readers may struggle to engage fully with the individual stories or remember who is where. Perhaps Englund would have done better to focus on fewer people and narrate their tales more coherently. The book is commendable but not for everyone. A stark, challenging-to-read picture of the war from the bottom up. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
