Antony Beevor, one of the finest narrative military historians now writing, is a master of revealing vignettes...Beevor captures the microevents of battle brilliantly, the ambushes and fire fights, the horrors of tanks swerving over foxholes to bury their inhabitants alive, tales of psychological collapse and superhuman courage.
Reading these terrible accounts is a salutary reminder of that thin veneer detected by Freud between the civilized and the primitive in each of us. Ardennes 1944 ought to prompt some careful reflection on our modern age.
As with his other books on the major campaigns in Europe during World War II, [Beevor] deftly moves from the fox hole to the command post and provides candid portraits of the leading figures on both sides, frank judgments about strategy and tactics, and a brutally honest picture of the horrors of combat.
The story of the Battle of the Bulge is a much-told tale, and while Mr. Beevor does not offer a new interpretation, he gives us the voices of ordinary soldiers on both sides, as well as those of civilians caught in the middle. He also provides lucid explanations of the German failure...
With Ardennes 1944, Beevor gives us a concise and powerful narrative of the biggest, bloodiest and most desperate battle of the war in Western Europe, as well as the ultimate account of American soldiers in their most trying time...One reason Beevor is such a great historian is his ability to convey a vision of the epic without losing touch with the individual stories that bring war home to the average reader.
