Stalingrad (Antony Beevor)

A well-done work. There has been some controversy about how much time Zhukov actually spent at Stalingrad during the battle. Although, I think Zhukov was the best general of WWII, Beevor admitted he may have given Zhukov a little too much credit at the expense of Vasilevsky.

you americans are getting too soft, while you complain that you have about a battalion of soldiers killed or wounded in iraq each month, at stalingrad battalions on each side were getting shot to peices by the minute

I don't know if there is a person on this earth who is more informed about the Battle of Stalingrad. I really enjoyed two of Beevor's books, The Fall of Berlin and Stalingrad. I think that a few books should be added to this list, The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, maybe The Art of War by Sun Tzu. My opinion is that this list is littered with Ambrose, far too many Amborse books on here.

THE BOOK STALINGRAD BY ANTONY BEEVOR IS A POWERFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE WHICH TOOK PLACE. IT HAS BEEN ALSO IMPARTIAL WHILE DESCRIBING THE ATROCITIES OF BOTH THE SIDES. HE HAS DESCRIBED IN DETAIL ABOUT THE HORRORS AND SUFFERINGS OF THAT BATTLE EXPERIENCED BY SOILDIERS AND CIVILIANS ALIKE. BUT ONE IMPORTANT EVENT HE HAS OMITTED, HE HAS NOT SAID A WORD ABOUT OPERATION MARS, IN WHICH ZHUKOVS TROUPS SUFFERED A DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF WEHRMACHT. RUSSIANS SUFFERED ABOUT 335000 CASUALTIES AT THE HANDS OF GERMANS. AS ZHUKOV WAS IN THE GOOD BOOKS OF STALIN, NOT A WORD WAS MENTIONED ABOUT THIS SETBACK BY SOVIET WAR HISTORIANS. WHY BEEVOR LIKE THE SOVIET WAR HISTORIANS WAS SILENT ON THIS EVENT IS A MYSTERY. THE AMOUNT OF RESEARCH HE HAS DONE TO WRITE THIS BOOK,THIS OMISSION IS SURPRISING. OTHERWISE THIS IS A BOOK WHICH HAS NARRATED THE EVENTS IN DETAIL,THAT ONE CANNOT PUT DOWN THE BOOK TILL COMPLETION OF READING IS OVER. THIS GIVES AN INSIGHT OF THE SUFFERINGS WHAT THE INHABITANTS HAD TO F... Read more

A really fascinating read. I did not know, for instance, that huge numbers of Soviet soldiers went over to the Germans during the battle and helped them fight their own people - in the first stage of Stalingrad, things were that bad for the Russians.

Excellent info... great detail... I also recommend his new book on Berlin.

A bit overrated. Whether this is the fault of the author or his editor, I'm not quite sure. You cannot argue against the depth of Beevor's research or his admirable attempts at humanising one of the most dehumanising events in recorded history, but I found the style of writing to be unclear and too uneven - there is a tendency for Beevor to jump from side-to-side and location-to-location without maintaining a clear narrative. This made the book quite hard work in places, and I found myself often having to re-read several paragraphs to make sense of the events being described. Consequently, I did not enjoy this book as much as I hoped. This is a great shame as it is obviously a very strong historical account on the basis of the research that went into it and the information contained within - but it could have been better written.

Beevor's Stalingrad is an impressive work. For those who are unaware of the savagery of the WWII Russian Front, it is a useful and concise work. But more importantly, it portrays the desperation and bestial qualities of both sides' leaders and High Commands: Hitler's insane abandonment of the Sixth Army and Stalin's order to shoot all "suspect" Russian soldiers (which resulted in the deaths of approximately 15,000 Russian men -- more than all the Allied Soldiers who died in combat on June 6th, 1944 in Normandy under fire!).It's a good read by a good writer.

Upsetting and amazing. After reading a bunch of books about WW2, I realized that most of the information we get downplays the pivotal role the Russians played in winning the war. The vast bulk of the fighting in WW2 involved operation "Barbarossa" - Germany's invasion of Russia. This book gives you an overview of that brutal conflict, with a detailed account of the almost unimaginably hellish fighting in and around Stalingrad from late 1942 to early 1943. If you're ever feeling like your life is rough, read this book and imagine what it would have been like to be a soldier - on either side - at Stalingrad.