THE SEVEN WAYS OF WAR.

Victor Hanson's The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won is not the usual military history.  Probably a good thing, notes our Book Review N^o. 7, as there are plenty of those already.  But how often does someone attempt to look at the conflict along classical lines (the seven ways being Ideas, Air, Water, Earth, Fire, People, and Ends?)  It's well written, I finished it in a few evenings, and learned a few things along the way.

There's not much of a spoiler in noting that the Axis powers were in no shape even to take on the world's biggest navy, the world's biggest army (an army, no less, that was rocking a lot of the world's best tanks), and the world's biggest economy (with plenty of slack capacity to build locomotives and trucks for the Soviet Union and replace the admittedly obsolete destroyers and aircraft that went to Britain and the Soviets.)

On the other hand, the surrender of a German army at Stalingrad was not the single largest surrender of a German army in 1943.  That surrender took place in a theater that might have been peripheral to the war effort (you'll have to read the story yourself!)  And perhaps the war could have been avoided.

And yet, the war was so terrible that, nearly four score years on, we have not seen a repeat (not to get complacent, dear reader, history rhymes ...) despite none of the victorious powers having achieved their war aims in the way the leaders of the day hoped or anticipated.

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.)