Presents forty-five essays in which various historians offer their perspectives on specific events and different aspects of World War II. Includes maps.

I. The German breakout: 1939-1941. Poland 1939 / Caleb Carr -- "Almost a miracle" / Robert A. Doughty -- "Bloody marvelous" / Anthony Bailey -- After Dunkirk / Bruce I. Gudmundsson -- "Undaunted by odds" / William Manchester -- Hitler's D Day / David Shears -- Could Sea Lion have worked? / David Shears -- Barbarossa / Williamson Murray -- II. The Great East Asia war. The might-have-beens of Pearl Harbor / Eliot A. Cohen -- Tokyo, December 8, 1941 / Theodore F. Cook Jr. -- The other Pearl Harbor / D. Clayton James -- King of Bataan / Thaddeus Holt -- III. World at war: 1942-1943. The Channel dash / Michael H. Coles -- Patrolling Guadalcanal / William H. Whyte -- The day the Hornet Ssnk / Alvin Kernan -- The battle that never happened / David M. Glantz -- Eighth Army eyewitness to El Alamein / George Greenfield -- Stalingrad / Antony Beevor -- Diary of a tail gunner / John Gabay -- Churchill and his generals / Eliot A. Cohen -- The turning points of Tarawa / Joseph H. Alexander -- The Kwai that never was / Stanley Weintraub -- Orde Wingate: rebellious misfit / Charles Berges -- IV. The secret war. Gott Mit whom? / David Balme and John McCormick -- Decima MAS / Paul Kemp -- Sabotaging Hitler's bomb / Dan Kurzman -- Beachhead labrador / W.A.B. Douglas -- The deceivers / Thaddeus Holt -- Peppermint and Alsos / Ferenc M. Szasz -- V. The end in Europe: 1944-1945. The airborne's watery triumph / T. Michael Booth and Duncan Spencer -- Rommel's last battle / David Fraser -- Falaise: the trap not sprung / Carlo D'Este -- In defense of Montgomery / Alistair Horne -- Did strategic bombing work? / Williamson Murray -- The Black Knight / Caleb Carr -- The last barrier / Stephen E. Ambrose -- The last picture show / George Feifer -- Berlin / John Keegan -- VI. Armageddon in the Pacific: 1944-1945. The myth of the Saipan suicides / Haruko Taya Cook -- The uncommon commoner / Eric Morris -- A Kamikaze's story / Kanji Suzuki and Tadao Morimoto -- Okinawa / Bruce I. Gudmundsson -- The right man / Victor Davis Hanson -- Previews of hell / Edward J. Drea -- The Soviet invasion of Japan / David M. Glantz -- The voice of the crane / Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar.