Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944: The Sunday Times No 1 Bestseller - Hardcover

Beevor, Antony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670918660 ISBN 13: 9780670918669

Publisher: Viking, 2018

Synopsis

The Sunday Times #1 Bestseller

The great airborne battle for the bridges in 1944 by Britain's Number One bestselling historian and author of the classic Stalingrad

Our greatest chronicler of the Second World War . . . his fans will love it' - Robert Fox, Evening Standard

The eye for telling detail which we have come to expect from Antony Beevor. . . this time, though, he turns his brilliance as a military historian to a subject not just of defeat, but dunderhead stupidity' Daily Mail

On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aero engines. He went out on to his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the vast air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. He gazed up in envy at the greatest demonstration of paratroop power ever seen.

Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept: the Americans thought it unusually bold for Field Marshal Montgomery. But the cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch who risked everything to help. German reprisals were cruel and lasted until the end of the war.

The British fascination for heroic failure has clouded the story of Arnhem in myths, not least that victory was possible when in fact the plan imposed by Montgomery and General 'Boy' Browning was doomed from the start. Antony Beevor, using many overlooked and new sources from Dutch, British, American, Polish and German archives, has reconstructed the terrible reality of this epic clash. Yet this book, written in Beevor's inimitable and gripping narrative style, is about much more than a single dramatic battle. It looks into the very heart of war.

'In Beevor's hands, Arnhem becomes a study of national character' - Ben Macintyre, The Times

'Complete mastery of both the story and the sources' - Keith Lowe, Literary Review

'Superb book, tirelessly researched and beautifully written' - Saul David, Daily Telegraph

'Another masterwork from the most feted military historian of our time' - Jay Elwes, Prospect Magazine

'The analysis he has produced of the disaster is forensic' - Giles Milton, Sunday Times

'He is a master of his craft . . . we have here a definitive account' - Piers Paul Read, The Tablet

About this title

Review:

Another masterwork from the most feted military historian of our time. . . Does the story need to be retold? Beevor is such a good writer, with a gift for clarity and a knack for the telling personal portrait, that the answer is undoubtedly yes. (Jay Elwes Prospect Magazine)

Beevor tells a story that is more human and complex than what he calls "the great myth of heroic failure", a tale of vanity, hubris, occasional incompetence, human frailty and remarkable grit. . . In Beevor's hands, Arnhem becomes a study of national character. (Ben Macintyre The Times)

The analysis he has produced of the disaster is forensic. Aficionados of military history will revel in Beevor's microscopic detail, with every skirmish given its rightful place. . . Beevor's prodigious research has nevertheless unearthed many treasures, particularly his record of the sufferings of Dutch civilians who risked their necks by nursing wounded allied soldiers. (Giles Milton Sunday Times)

Complete mastery of both the story and the sources. The beauty is in the details. . . . This gripping book, with its tightly focused timescale and subject matter, shows him once again at his very best. (Keith Lowe Literary Review)

Our greatest chronicler of the Second World War . . . The drama of manoeuvre and counter-thrust, the courage and cowardice of soldier and civilian, the follies and vanities of commanders, which are especially rich in this story, are deployed with colour and humanity. His fans will love it. (Robert Fox Evening Standard)

This absorbing new account of the battle with the eye for telling detail which we have come to expect from Antony Beevor. . . this time, though, he turns his brilliance as a military historian to a subject not just of defeat, but dunderhead stupidity. (Tony Rennell Daily Mail)

As Antony Beevor showed in Stalingrad, he is a master of his craft as a military historian. . . We have here a definitive account of one of the most painful episodes of the Second World War. (Piers Paul Read The Tablet)

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Antony Beevor

Stalingrad
'So gripping is Antony Beevor's Stalingrad that I actually found myself reading it walking along the pavement. . . this brilliant tapestry, which illuminates so pitilessly, and yet with a reassuring glow of humanity, the most cruel of all 20th-century battles.' Alan Clark, New Statesman

Berlin - The Downfall 1945
'This brilliant storyteller. . . makes us feel the chaos and the fear as if every drop of blood was our own: that is his gift. It is much more than just a humane account; it is compellingly readable, deeply researched and beautifully written.' Simon Sebag Montefiore in The Spectator.
D-Day - The Battle for Normandy
'Beevor never allows the deadly truth of war to be obscured by the foggy language of academia: this is history that is felt, war as it was experienced by real people, by our fathers and grandfathers.' ***** Craig Brown in the Mail on Sunday.

Ardennes - Hitler's Last Gamble
'Antony Beevor, one of the finest narrative military historians now writing, is a master of revealing vignettes. . . Beevor captures the micro-events of battle brilliantly, the ambushes and firefights, the horrors of tanks swerving over foxholes to bury their inhabitants alive, tales of psychological collapse and superhuman courage.' Eliot Cohen in The New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0670918660
• ISBN 13: 9780670918669
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480