The Origins of the Second World War. This item is unavailable.The Origins of the Second World War

The book explores the reasons why the Second World War broke out in September 1939 and not sooner, and why a European war expanded into world war by 1941. The war has usually been seen simply as Hitler’s war and yet the wider conflict that broke out when Germany invaded Poland was not the war that Hitler wanted. He had hoped for a short war against Poland; instead, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Richard Overy argues that any explanation of the outbreak of hostilities must therefore be multi-national and he shows how the war’s origins are to be found in the basic instability of the international system that was brought about by the decline of the old empires of Britain and France and the rise of ambitious new powers, Italy, Germany and Japan, keen to build new empires of their own.

Richard Overy is Professor in History at University of Exeter (previously Professor of Modern European History at King’s College, London). He has written widely on history of the Third Reich, the Second World War and the Soviet Union, including a number of critically acclaimed books: Russia’s War (1999), the best-seller The Battle (2000), and Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands (2002).

He was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize by the Society for Military History for a lifetime’s contribution to military history. He is also a regular contributor to radio and television.