D-Day: 75th Anniversary Edition - Softcover

Beevor, Antony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241968976 ISBN 13: 9780241968970

Publisher: Penguin, 2014

Synopsis

The Number One Bestseller

Reissued with a new foreword for the 75th Anniversary

This is the closest you will ever get to war - the taste, the smell, the noise and the fear

The Normandy Landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was awesome and what followed was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war. As casualties mounted, so too did the tensions between the principal commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing endured terrible suffering. Even the joys of Liberation had their darker side.

Antony Beevor's inimitably gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war. He lands the reader on the beach alongside the heroes whose stories he so masterfully renders in their full terrifying glory.

'Magnificent, vivid, moving, superb' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'A thrilling story, with all Beevor's narrative mastery' Chris Patten, Financial Times

'Beevor's D-Day has all the qualities that have made his earlier works so successful: an eye for telling and unusual detail, an ability to make complex events understandable, and a wonderful graphic style' Ian Kershaw, Guardian, Books of the Year

'D-Day's phenomenal success is both understandable and justified' James Holland

'D-Day is a triumph . . . on almost every page there's some little detail that sticks in the mind or tweaks the heart. This is a terrific, inspiring, heart-breaking book' Sam Leith, Daily Mail

Antony Beevor is the author of Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (Runciman Prize), Stalingrad (Samuel Johnson Prize, Wolfson Prize for History and Hawthornden Prize), Berlin: The Downfall, The Battle for Spain (Premio La Vanguardia), D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (Prix Henry Malherbe and the RUSI Westminster Medal), The Second World War, Ardennes 1944 (Prix Médicis shortlist) and Arnhem. The number one bestselling historian in Britain, Beevor's books have appeared in thirty-three languages and have sold over eight million copies. A former chairman of the Society of Authors, he has received a number of honorary doctorates. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Kent and an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London. He was knighted in 2017.

About this title

Review:

Magnificent, vivid, moving, superb . . . offers a thousand vignettes of drama, terror, cruelty, compassion, courage and cowardice (Max Hastings Sunday Times)

A knockout reassessment of one of the Second World War's great set-piece battles. Swoops from the vicious close-quarter fighting in the hedgerows to the petrified French onlookers and onwards to the political leaders wrestling with monumental decisions (Sunday Times)

Beevor has succeeded brilliantly. D-Day can sit proudly alongside his other masterworks on Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. Superbly brings the events of that summer to life again (Patrick Bishop Daily Telegraph)

As near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there. . . It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement (Giles Foden Guardian)

A magnificent portrait. Beevor has assembled a mass of unfamiliar sources, fresh voices, and untold. As powerful and authoritative an account of the battle for Normandy as we are likely to get (Max Hastings Sunday Times)

D-Day is a triumph of research. . . on almost every page there's some little detail that sticks in the mind or tweaks the heart. This is a terrific, inspiring, heart-breaking book (Sam Leith Daily Mail)

It tells a thrilling story, with all Beevor's narrative mastery (Chris Patten Financial Times)

Impeccable, splendid, thoroughly researched and gripping. Beevor is master of narrative, expertly blending the grand sweep with the telling anecdote (Dominic Sandbrook Observer)

Beevor can be credited with single-handedly transforming the reputation of military history (David Edgar Guardian)

His singular ability to make huge historical events accessible to a general audience recalls the golden age of British narrative history, whose giants include Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle (Boyd Tonkin Independent)

From the Back Cover:

Antony Beevor's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is the closest you will ever get to war - the taste, the smell, the noise and the fear.

The Normandy Landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war, at times as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. As casualties mounted, so too did the tensions between the principal commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing endured terrible suffering. Even the joys of Liberation had their darker side.

'Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war.As near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there. . . It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement' Giles Foden, Guardian

'No writer can surpass Beevor in making sense of a crowded battlefield and in balancing the explanation of tactical manoeuvres with poignant flashes of human detail' Christopher Silvester, Daily Express

Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have sold nearly four million copies.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0241968976
• ISBN 13: 9780241968970
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640