The Secret War - by Max Hastings (Paperback)

About the Book

An examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II--intelligence--shows how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome. -- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"Monumental." --New York Times Book Review

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II--intelligence--showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome.

Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.

From the Back Cover

From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II--intelligence--showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome.

Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.

Review Quotes

"[Hastings] brilliantly depicts the byzantine world of intelligence agencies, with dry humor and perception." - New York Review of Books
"Hastings (Catastrophe: 1914) further solidifies his gift for combining scholarship and readability in this scintillating overview of intelligence operations in WWII...Hastings tells it all in a book everyone interested in WWII should acquire." - Publishers Weekly
"A fast-moving, highly readable survey of the entire war, in all its phases and on all fronts . . . . This is military history at its most gripping. Of all Max Hastings's valuable books, this is possibly his best?a veritable tour de force. . . . Though the Second World War has been the subject of immense historical research, Max Hastings here demonstrates how much there is still to know. . . . Hastings draws on eye-witness accounts and anecdotes from soldiers of all armies to show graphically what the war was like for the ordinary people who fought it, and, overwhelmingly, how terrible it was for the combatants. While many of the frontline commanders of each of the belligerent powers come in for some harsh treatment for their ineptitude or bungling, the valour, heroism and, above all, the extraordinary stoicism of their troops amid scarcely imaginable pain, suffering and losses are repeatedly highlighted." - Evening Standard (London)
"A new, original, necessary history, in many ways the crowning of a life's work. A professional war correspondent who has personally witnessed armed conflict in Vietnam, the Falkland Islands and other danger zones, Hastings has a sober, unromantic and realistic view of battle that puts him into a different category from the armchair generals whose gung-ho, schoolboy attitude to war fills the pages of a great majority of military histories. He writes with grace, fluency and authority. . . . Inferno is superb." - New York Times Book Review
"Monumental...a real page turner." - New York Times Book Review
"Ambitious and often fascinating...This wide-ranging account is filled with compelling characters...A superb survey of an always interesting aspect of warfare." - Booklist
"[A]n authoritative and engaging book that will stand as the definitive single volume analysis of "The Secret War" for years to come....This is a marvelous book - smart, carefully and exhaustively researched and highly informative. Even those exceptionally knowledgeable about World War II will find it extremely valuable. It is compelling and fascinating reading...[T]he lessons of this important book are both historically important and very timely. - Christian Science Monitor
"[D]efinitive....This is a marvelous book - smart, carefully and exhaustively researched and highly informative. Even those exceptionally knowledgeable about World War II will find it extremely valuable. It is compelling and fascinating reading." - Christian Science Monitor
Praise for Inferno: "The best one-volume history of the war yet written. . . . It is in all ways a monumental achievement. . . . A relatively brief review can only begin to indicate the depth, breadth, complexity and pervasive humanity of this extraordinary book. The literature of World War II is, as Hastings notes at the beginning of his bibliography, so vast as almost to defy enumeration or comprehension, but Inferno immediately moves to the head of the list." - Washington Post
"Balanced and elegantly written prose. . . . Inferno is a magnificent achievement, a one-volume history that should find favor among readers thoroughly immersed in World War II and those approaching the subject for the first time. As the years thin the ranks of those who fought in the war, Hastings's balanced and elegantly written prose should help ensure that the bloodshed, bravery and brutality of that tragic conflict aren't forgotten." - Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers
"A work of staggering scope and erudition, narrated with supreme fluency and insight, it is unquestionably the best single-volume history of the war ever written. . . . Oddly enough, good single-volume histories of the war are relatively rare. By and large, its sheer scope intimidates writers: while there are hundreds of books about individual episode, from the Battle of Britain to D-Day, surprisingly few historians have tried to pull all the threads together. But Hastings, as the author of several splendid volumes on various aspects of the conflict, is the ideal candidate to conquer this historiographical Everest. His book is at once a 'global portrait, ' emphasizing events in Asia as well as in Europe, and a 'human story, ' saturated in the details of ordinary people's experience. . . . Hastings has a terrific grasp of the grand sweep and military strategy of the war, showing how a combination of Russian blood, American industry and German incompetence made the allied victory inevitable. But what makes this book so compelling are the human stories. . . . This is the book he was born to write." - Sunday Times (London)