Rating: 
Summary: fun, with fascinating digressions, but not really complete
Review: This is less of a comprehensive history of the Normandy invasion and its aftermath, and more of a series of fascinating essays on aspects of the action. Keegan happily goes off on a series of digressions about Canadian and Polish and French military history, and mini-bios of all sorts of figures, including Stillwell, who was on the other side of the world when Normandy went down. It's all riveting, and well worth the read, but if you're strictly interested in what happened during the battle, you might be a little disappointed.Further, Keegan doesn't go out of his way to make this accessable. The book is full of references to British military history -- I'm not sure that comparing Normandy to Waterloo and the Balaclava (The Charge of the Light Brigade, et al) really helped me very much. Keegan is the kind of guy who'll mention _le Serment de Koufra_ rather than simply refering to an earlier description of Leclerc's speech at Kufra. Finally, the feel I get from Keegan is that the British did the Americans an awfully big favor by allowing them to equip and accompany the British and French and Canadians and Polish on this big adventure. This isn't a real big deal, and it is probably a useful antidote to some of the more nationalistic US histories, but it still struck me as an odd note. All in all, this is a really fine book that goes well beyond simply laying out the actions of the units involved, and manages to give some insight into why they took those actions, based on the histories of both the units and thier leaders.
Rating:
Summary: fun, with fascinating digressions, but not really complete
Review: This is less of a comprehensive history of the Normandy invasion and its aftermath, and more of a series of fascinating essays on aspects of the action. Keegan happily goes off on a series of digressions about Canadian and Polish and French military history, and mini-bios of all sorts of figures, including Stillwell, who was on the other side of the world when Normandy went down. It's all riveting, and well worth the read, but if you're strictly interested in what happened during the battle, you might be a little disappointed. Further, Keegan doesn't go out of his way to make this accessable. The book is full of references to British military history -- I'm not sure that comparing Normandy to Waterloo and the Balaclava (The Charge of the Light Brigade, et al) really helped me very much. Keegan is the kind of guy who'll mention _le Serment de Koufra_ rather than simply refering to an earlier description of Leclerc's speech at Kufra. Finally, the feel I get from Keegan is that the British did the Americans an awfully big favor by allowing them to equip and accompany the British and French and Canadians and Polish on this big adventure. This isn't a real big deal, and it is probably a useful antidote to some of the more nationalistic US histories, but it still struck me as an odd note. All in all, this is a really fine book that goes well beyond simply laying out the actions of the units involved, and manages to give some insight into why they took those actions, based on the histories of both the units and thier leaders.
Rating: 
Summary: very hard to read, lost interest
Review: This is the worst WWII book I have come across.
| 
