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murfmonkey's review against another edition
5.0
This is the third volume in Mr. Atkinson’s excellent three volume work on the U.S. army in Europe (and Africa)in WWII. Like the other two books it excels in vivid description, a nose for detail, and fascinating characters and incidents that Mr. Atkinson seems to be able to dig up at will.
I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these books.
I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these books.
wpboger's review against another edition
4.0
Epic, for better or worse. In cramming so much into so few pages, the battle scenes sometimes feel rushed, or under-described, and I would gladly trade more depth there for fewer descriptions of scenery, logistics, or diplomatic discussions. An excellent read, though, almost a page-turner, with several key players -- Churchill, especially -- leaping largely to life. The Liberation Trilogy is study-worthy, but also wildly entertaining. An achievement.
st_urmer's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastic final volume to this excellent trilogy. Atkinson combines broad narrative history with personal details to bring the last year of the war in Europe vividly to life. He spends just enough time on the more familiar events; D-Day invasion of Normandy, MARKET-GARDEN fiasco; while exploring lesser known battles such as the follow-up landings in Southern France. As with the first two volumes, he does a fine job illuminating the tensions within the Anglo-American alliance and the complex personalities of the principle commanders. The concurrent Soviet drive in the the East is given short-shrift, understandable given the author's main focus, but it would have been interesting if the allies' fear of Soviet domination and the suggestion (by Patton and others) to take a more aggressive stance had been discussed. Only Montgomery's drive to the Baltic Coast to cut of Schleswig-Holstein (and thus Denmark) from further Soviet expansion was mentioned. Quibbles aside, the volume, and the whole trilogy, offers a masterful and accessible history of the Second World War in the West.
pwsantabook's review against another edition
5.0
Every bit as gripping and tremendous as the prior two books in the trilogy. The magnitude of the cataclysm known as WW2 has never been drawn as clearly or as poignantly.
fulminataxii's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent finish to the Liberation Trilogy. This book does a greatt job of showing the totality of the big picture in Western Europe from 1944 to 1945. Nearly everyone knows D-Day, Market-Garden, and the Bulge. Many know Falaise, the Hurtgen Forest, and Remagen. Fewer know the events that connect those battles, creating the narrative of the war in Western Europe. This books biggest strength is in paying attention to those events and thereby creating a continuous narrative in a way that I've yet to see in another work.
There is only one real criticism that I can level against the book, and that's one of style. I'd love to recommend this trilogy to people interested in learning more about WWII, but the author has an unfortunate tendency to show off his vocabulary. I suppose as a professional journalist, he has felt constrained by the need to write to an 8th grade level for most publications. Unfortunately, this has led to him using a great number of words for which most will need to reach for a dictionary. It would be one thing if the words were indeed a better choice than a simpler word choice would have been, but not once did I find that to be the case.
Overall though, it's a great book, and was worth the wait.
There is only one real criticism that I can level against the book, and that's one of style. I'd love to recommend this trilogy to people interested in learning more about WWII, but the author has an unfortunate tendency to show off his vocabulary. I suppose as a professional journalist, he has felt constrained by the need to write to an 8th grade level for most publications. Unfortunately, this has led to him using a great number of words for which most will need to reach for a dictionary. It would be one thing if the words were indeed a better choice than a simpler word choice would have been, but not once did I find that to be the case.
Overall though, it's a great book, and was worth the wait.
verbadanga66's review against another edition
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
whovian223's review against another edition
5.0
The conclusion to this awesome (but daunting) series is just as great as the first two books. I read this one on the Kindle, which made the maps a little annoying, but that's not the book's fault.
It's well-written, with a huge amount of detail. I've read a lot on World War II and there are a lot of things that I wasn't even aware of that Atkinson mentions in the book.
There are tons of notes, indices, and other things in the back. I was getting concerned that it was taking me a long time to read this and I was still only at 40-45% done. Then I ended up hitting the end around 50-55%, which tells me there is a lot in the back after the narrative itself is done.
Excellent book. All three are well worth a read.
It's well-written, with a huge amount of detail. I've read a lot on World War II and there are a lot of things that I wasn't even aware of that Atkinson mentions in the book.
There are tons of notes, indices, and other things in the back. I was getting concerned that it was taking me a long time to read this and I was still only at 40-45% done. Then I ended up hitting the end around 50-55%, which tells me there is a lot in the back after the narrative itself is done.
Excellent book. All three are well worth a read.
kieranhealy's review against another edition
5.0
Atkinson does it again. He had already firmly entrenched himself as one of the great writers of history in our time. But with the consistent quality of all his writing, it seems he has scaled the all-time mountain along with Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Cornelius Ryan. An expert at weaving anecdotes and facts together to create a prose the conveys a massive amount of information in an engaging and illuminating way. I hope he decides to turn his attention to the Pacific, which I think could definitely use his deft touch.
musicsaves's review against another edition
4.0
FIRST LINE REVIEW: "A killing frost struck England in the middle of May 1944, stunting the plum trees and the berry crops." And the killing continues through the next 640 pages of Atkinson's conclusion to his Liberation Trilogy. He's taken me through the African campaign in "An Army at Dawn" and the Italian campaign in "The Day of Battle." Now we finally reach Western Europe for the most horrific of all confrontations. Atkinson write histories with the subtle voice of a poet when not being bogged down in the brutal amount of statistics that a good researcher often brings to this game. I found the stats more oppressive this time around, so it was a bit more a slog to finish this one. But perhaps that's the point. It certainly wasn't easy for the Allied forces to finish their mission, either.