NOVEMBER 1942

A Telegraph History Book of the Year 2023 An astonishing achievement ANTONY BEEVOR A remarkably moving and humane book WILLIAM BOYD An intimate history of the most important month of the Second World War as experienced by those who lived through it completely based on their diaries letters and memoirs At the beginning of November 1942 it looked as if the Axis powers could win the war at the end of that month it was obviously just a matter of time before they would lose In between came el Alamein Guadalcanal the French North Africa landings the Japanese retreat in New Guinea and the Soviet encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad In this innovatively kaleidoscopic and riveting historical marvel Peter Englund reduces these epoch making events to their basic component the individual experience In thirty memorable days we meet characters including a Soviet infantryman at Stalingrad an Italian truck driver in the North African desert a partisan in the Belarussian forests a machine gunner in a British bomber a twelve year old girl in Shanghai a university student in Paris a housewife on Long Island a prisoner in Treblinka Albert Camus Vasily Grossman and Vera Brittain We also witness the launch of SS James Oglethorpe the fate of U