Max Hastings

The RAF's night offensive against Germany — 55,000 aircrew dead, German cities in ashes, and the question of what it achieved.

A reappraisal of the Normandy campaign arguing that German soldiers were man-for-man superior to their Allied opponents.

The final battle for Germany on both fronts, from September 1944 to the surrender.

The brutal final year of the Pacific War, from the Philippines to the atomic bombings.

A global history of the war focused on the experience of ordinary people — soldiers and civilians — caught in it.