John Keegan's The Second World War: A book review

The Second World War was the largest, bloodiest conflict in history. It was fought on three of the seven continents and involved every major power of the time. Some of the combatant nations (most notably France and Italy) changed sides at least once between 1939 and 1945, and by the time Japan surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945 over 50 million men, women, and children were dead, millions more were wounded and/or uprooted, homeless, and bewildered by the war's effects.

Indeed, those of us now living in the early 21st century are still living with the aftermath of World War II; many of the crises we now face can be traced to decisions made during or shortly after the war.

John Keegan's The Second World War is a one-volume general history of the 1939-45 conflict, and it should be read more as an introductory text rather than a comprehensive "this-is-the-book-that-explains-the-whole-darned-thing" opus. It's too short (595 pages, not counting the bibliography or index) for that. Instead, it is structured in six parts, starting with Hitler's early campaigns in Poland and the West in 1939-40 and culminating with Japan's surrender in the summer of 1945. Each part is divided into a few chapters that focus on themes and strategies...with attention given to a particular type of warfare in the form of an example. For instance, for "Air Battle," Keegan cites the Battle of Britain. For "Airborne Battle," he uses Crete as his centerpiece.

The book is strongest when Keegan goes into detail about such things as the evolution of armies from the 19th century until the war started in September 1939; he is particularly adept when explaining the revolutionary changes in European military organizations, particularly after the integration of the railroad and mass-production techniques from 1860 on. Keegan takes a potential snore-inducing subject -- Surplus and war-making capacity, say -- and makes it interesting to the average reader. His experience as an instructor at Sandhurst and his writing skills allow Keegan to weave a coherent narrative tapestry that depicts World War II in all its terrible yet mesmerizing spectacle.

As good as this book is, it is not without its flaws. Perhaps his research assistants blundered on occasion, or the publisher's deadline loomed too near when Keegan completed The Second World War, but I spotted a few errors of fact or terminology. In Part V: The War in the West, Keegan writes this about Operation Market-Garden: "Market, the seizure of the bridges at Eindhoven and Nijmegen [in Holland] by the American airborne divisions, proved a brilliant success. Garden, the descent of the British 1st Airborne Division on the more distant Rhine bridges at Arnhem, did not."

In fact, Market was the code name given to the entire airborne half of the operation, while Garden referred to the British ground force (XXX Corps) assigned to relieve and reinforce the paratroopers. 

In another chapter, Keegan labels the SS mobile task forces used to round up and execute tens of thousands of Jews in the East with the term Sonderkommando. This, too, is inaccurate. The German SS units Keegan writes about were called Einsatzgruppen. Sonderkommandos were Jewish concentration camp inmates given the awful duties of emptying the gas chambers and crematoria in such hellish places as Auschwitz and Treblinka. Obviously, few books ever escape the odd typo or small factual error, but there are enough of these gaffes to distract or confuse the reader.

Nevertheless, John Keegan's book is worth reading, flaws and all.