Rating: 
Summary: Nicely written overview of WWII, but lousy maps and photos
Review: This is a nicely written overview of World War II, that I learned alot from. I read this "Idiot's Guide" book to get a better understanding of the war, and I am satisfied with this book as being a good introduction to the major events of WWII. It's not as lighthearted or fun as most "Idiot's Guides" are, I suppose because of the subject matter. They writing is not too complicated, nor simpleminded; a good balance. But, they should have put more effort into the graphics that do appear in the book.I just feel like this book could have been made much better, with a little more effort. More photos would have been nice! They seem to only have about one photo per chapter, and not a very interesting one, at that. The half dozen lousy maps are the most irritating aspect of the book. They did not make new maps for this book, but rather, they used copies of old maps, from various sources, all of which are uniformative and of substandard appearance, (one even looks like a photo negative). The maps are usually placed many pages past the text where the locations on them are first discussed in the text. So you are not even aware that there is a map, until you start reading about a different locale, then there's the map that showed what was happening many pages earlier. What is shown on the maps is usually too small of a geographical area (so you can't picture the location on the European continent), and/or the locations are poorly labelled. It would have helped immensely to have a fresh, simple map, every few pages or so, showing the general borders of the territories and troop movements described in the text. Overall, I'm glad that I read this book, and textwise I got what I was expecting. But now that I know more, I wonder if there is a better overview book available to the newly curious?
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