World War II History Books

In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M. G. Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha — the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors — in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay, and Little Boy. These survivors and witnesses, who now have an average age over 90 years old, are quite literally the last people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bombings, tell us what they experienced on the day those cities were obliterated, and give us some appreciation of what it has entailed to live with those memories and scars during the subsequent 70-plus years.

From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War. General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy was lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late.

From the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Volunteer, the powerful true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after World War II to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past.

The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown. Propulsive and vividly rendered, The Fifteen reminds us that what happens to soldiers after they exit the battlefield can be just as harrowing as what they experience on it.

The extraordinary true story of a small group of Frenchwomen, all Resistance members, who banded together in a notorious concentration camp to defy the Nazis — from the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War.

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur.

The extraordinary life of forgotten World War II hero Evans Carlson, commander of America’s first special forces, secret confidant of FDR, and one of the most controversial officers in the history of the Marine Corps, who dedicated his life to bridging the cultural divide between the United States and China.

Nearly forgotten by history, this is the story of the Wereth Eleven, African-American soldiers who fought courageously for freedom in WWII — only to be ruthlessly executed by Nazi troops during the Battle of the Bulge. Despite their bravery and sacrifice, these eleven soldiers were omitted from the final Congressional War Crimes report of 1949. For seventy years, their files — marked secret — gathered dust in the National Archive. But in 1994, at the site of their execution, a memorial was dedicated to the Wereth Eleven and all African-American soldiers who fought in Europe.

Bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands narrates the fierce debate over America’s role in the world in the run-up to World War II through its two most important figures: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who advocated intervention, and his isolationist nemesis, aviator, and popular hero Charles Lindbergh.

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A Woman of No Importance, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players, Pamela Churchill Harriman. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces, and fabulous clothes, Kingmaker re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place at the heart of history.

The untold story of four special operations officers who fought together behind enemy lines across multiple theaters of World War II, and then continued to serve, officially and unofficially, for decades after in the hottest parts of the Cold War. These four men, through sheer determination and daring, as well as unwavering friendship and loyalty, fought for a better world.

Love, betrayal, and a secret war: The untold story of two elite agents, one Canadian, one British, who became one of the most decorated couples of WWII. Reconstructed from hours of unpublished interviews and hundreds of archival and personal documents, the story Ayed tells is about the ravaging costs of war paid for disproportionately by the young. But more than anything, The War We Won Apart is a story about love: Two secret agents who were supposed to land in enemy territory together, but were fated to fight the war apart.

The collective voice of Japanese Americans defined by a specific moment in time: The four years of World War II during which the U.S. government expelled resident aliens and its own citizens from their homes and imprisoned 125,000 of them in American concentration camps, based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy. Together they form an epic narrative with a singular vision of America’s past, one with disturbing resonances with the American present.

One of WWII’s most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot’s license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hazel Ying Lee reached for the skies and made her mark as a universal and unsung hero whose time has come.

The astonishing untold story of the author’s father, the lone American on a four-person team of Allied secret agents dropped into Nazi-occupied France, whose epic feats of irregular warfare proved vital in keeping German tanks away from Normandy after D-Day.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation.

Discover the dramatic, untold true story of the extraordinary women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II.

When Japan attacked the United States in 1941, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. In a groundbreaking history that considers Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective, certain to revolutionize how we think of the war in the Pacific, Eri Hotta poses essential questions overlooked for the last seventy years.

The definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress. In this magisterial, acclaimed biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer’s life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War. This is biography and history at its finest, riveting and deeply informative.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author John Hersey’s seminal work of narrative nonfiction which has defined the way we think about nuclear warfare. “One of the great classics of the war” (The New Republic) that tells what happened in Hiroshima during World War II through the memories of the survivors of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city.

More than one million Black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units while waging a dual battle against inequality in the very country for which they were laying down their lives. An essential and meticulously researched retelling of the war, Half American honors the men and women who dared to fight not just for democracy abroad but for their dreams of a freer and more equal America.

Beginning in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, The First Wave follows the remarkable men who carried out D-Day’s most perilous missions.

A landmark, magisterial history of the trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals — the largely overlooked Asian counterpart to Nuremberg, from the author of the acclaimed The Blood Telegram. This magnificent history is the product of a decade of research and writing. Judgment at Tokyo is a riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the Asian postwar era.

Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall — an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman’s fierce persistence helped win the war.

The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers at World War II — all Medal of Honor recipients — from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler’s own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of The First Wave.

The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz — an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

Appeasement is a groundbreaking history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Hitler’s domination of Europe. Drawing on deep archival research and sources not previously seen by historians, Tim Bouverie has created an unforgettable portrait of the ministers, aristocrats, and amateur diplomats who, through their actions and inaction, shaped their country’s policy and determined the fate of Europe.

In Double Cross, New York Times bestselling author Ben Macintyre returns with the untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II, and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it.

Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of a former Olympian’s courage, cunning, and fortitude following his plane crash into enemy territory. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

The Longest Day tells the story of the Allies’ greatest success, the Normandy invasions of June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord; A Bridge Too Far recounts perhaps their greatest failure, the catastrophic airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944, known as Operation Market Garden. Together, they reveal not only the twisting fortunes of war and the grand sweep and scale of the largest amphibious and airborne invasions ever mounted, but also the very real human experience of combat, the small but momentous individual acts that can change the course of history.

From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel — and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.