Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. -- Publisher.

A monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II, and its deeply personal consequences. Hastings simultaneously traces the major developments and puts them into real human context. He also explores some of the darker and less explored regions of the war's penumbra, including the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland; and the Bengal famine in 1943 and 1944.

In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—American President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors. Combining in-depth...

"From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: from the breakdown of diplomacy to the dramatic battles that occurred before the war bogged down in the trenches. World War I immediately evokes images of the trenches: grinding, halting battles that sacrificed millions of lives for no territory or visible gain. Yet the first months of the war, from the German invasion of Belgium to the Marne to Ypres, were utterly...

Max Hastings provides in this book a chronicle of the horrific final year of the Pacific war. By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the victory would be achieved remained to be seen. Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the key figures--MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors--American,...

A history of the final eight months of World War II in Europe examines the pact between the Allies and the Soviet Union, the role of strategic bombing, the combat abilities of soldiers on all sides, and the roles of military leaders.