The battle of Britain pitted the Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Royal Air Force against the Messerschmitts of Hitler's Luftwaffe in the skies over England in 1940. It was immortalized in Churchill's words, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," but it has since been debunked by revisionists as an inconclusive and even strategically flawed encounter for the British. In this assessment of the battle, Richard Overy restores the historical balance. He delivers shrewd judgments on the critical elements for both sides, from strategy to leadership, command organization, communications, and training to the technology of fighters, bombers, and radar. Overy shows that even if the popular myth overshoots the mark, the significance of the battle remains undiminished in the light of realistic judgments. A necessary battle, it marked the end of Germany's string of victories, forestalled a German invasion, and kept Britain in the war.

The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality

History

Overy Ph.D., Richard

Europe

W.W.Norton&Company

"A book of great importance; it surpasses all others in breadth and depth."--Commentary If the past century will be remembered for its tragic pairing of civilized achievement and organized destruction, at the heart of darkness may be found Hitler, Stalin, and the systems of domination they forged. Their lethal regimes murdered millions and fought a massive, deadly war. Yet their dictatorships took shape within formal constitutional structures and drew the support of the German and Russian people. In the first major historical work to analyze the two dictatorships together in depth, Richard Overy gives us an absorbing study of Hitler and Stalin, ranging from their private and public selves, their ascents to power and consolidation of absolute rule, to their waging of massive war and creation of far-flung empires of camps and prisons. The Nazi extermination camps and the vast Soviet Gulag represent the two dictatorships in their most inhuman form. Overy shows us the human and historical roots of these evils. 16 pages of illustrations

The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

“Packed with drama, both military and political.… It will surely prove definitive.” ―Lewis Jones, Daily Telegraph
This compact, masterful work by an outstanding historian marks a pivotal moment in military history: the birth of Britain’s Royal Air Force. Writing with great clarity, Richard Overy shows how the RAF emerged from the deadly stalemate of trench warfare during World War I. With German bombers attacking British cities by 1917, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, navigated the organizational breakthrough that made the RAF an independent force in spring 1918. The RAF would prove highly influential in the development of air power around the world.

RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force

A great historian’s masterful account of the origins of air power in the RAF.
The birth of the Royal Air Force during World War I marked a pivotal moment in modern military and political history. With Europe’s western front frozen in a bloody stalemate of trench warfare, both sides sought some means of directly attacking enemy resources and morale. The new technologies of air power were used at first for reconnaissance of enemy positions for artillery strikes. By 1917 German bombers had begun raids on British cities, including an attack on London that killed hundreds, with eighteen schoolchildren among the casualties. Public outrage in Britain sparked a call for air defense and spurred political support for an independent air ministry. Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, led the debates over how to shape Britain’s air power during the war. The immediate path to an independent RAF is a fascinating story of political, bureaucratic, and personal rivalries.
By the end of World War I, the RAF was launching effective bombing campaigns on industrial and military targets in western Germany. It survived postwar retrenchment thanks largely to Churchill, who as colonial secretary gave the RAF special responsibility for enforcing imperial control in the Middle East, especially in the new League of Nations mandates of Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. The RAF helped to shape the way air power developed not just in Britain but notably in Germany and the United States. The massive bombing campaigns of World War II against civilian and industrial targets in major cities are rooted in this history.
This compact book shows a master historian at work. In command of the archival sources, at home in all dimensions of the story, Richard Overy crafts an engrossing narrative of this turning point in our history.

In 1932, two towering intellectuals, Einstein and Freud, published a correspondence on the question, "Why war?" Their exchange presented war as an instinctive drive, a conclusion seemingly confirmed in the carnage of the coming world war. But their narrow response left many other explanations open: What about war and the competition for resources? the need for security? the passions of belief, ideological or religious? What of leadership and the impulse to power? Showing remarkable range, Richard Overy explores the title question throughout human history. He reconstructs long-ago conflicts among hunter-gatherers from Africa to the Americas using skeletal and climatological evidence of the Neolithic period. He draws on Roman history to weigh the empire's voracious appetite for resources. He demonstrates the drive for power through the examples of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler. And he shows through the current war in Ukraine how the various impulses to war overlap and reinforce.

Why War?

Military

Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan

Asia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Overy Ph.D., Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Overy Ph.D., Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Overy Ph.D., Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality

The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia

RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force

RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force

Why War?

Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan