World War II Past Readings

2025

    • Daniel James Brown, Facing the Mountain
    • Ben MacIntyre, Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS
    • Jennet Conant, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos
    • Peter Hayes, Why? Explaining the Holocaust
    • Steve Kemper, Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor
    • Margery Allingham, The Oaken Heart
    • Tim Bouverie, Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World

2024

    • Ben MacIntyre, Prisoners of the Castle
    • Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45
    • Rana Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945
    • I. J. Galatin, Take Her Deep!: A Submarine Against Japan in World War II
    • Joseph Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead
    • Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
    • A.J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
    • Tracy Campbell, The Year of Peril: America in 1942 
    • Richard Wheeler, The Bloody Battle for Suribachi
    • Peter Padfield, War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict During World War II
    • Gerhard Weinberg, Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leader

2023

    • Walter Ford Carter, No Greater Sacrifice, No Greater Love 

    • Virginia Cowles, Looking For Trouble 

    • Joseph Balkoski, Omaha Beach: D-day June 6, 1944

    • Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia 

    • Michael Neiberg, When France Fell: the Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance

    • Srinath Raghaven, India’s War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia

    • E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939

    • Philip Ziegler, Between the Wars: 1919–1939

    • Gordon Corera, Operation Columba—The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe

    • E.B Sledge, With the Old Breed

    • Richard J. Overy, The Air War, 1939–1945

2022

    • Michael Paradis, Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice 

    • Jeremy Black, A History of the Second World War in 100 Maps 

    • Meredith Hindley, Destination Casablanca: Exile, Espionage, and the Battle for North Africa in World War II 

    • Frank Sisson with Robert L. Wise, I Marched With Patton: A Firsthand Account of World War II Alongside One of the U.S Army’s Greatest Generals 

    • Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far

    • Vesa Nenye, Peter Munter, Toni Wirtanen, Chris Birks, Finland at War: The Continuation and Lapland Wars 1941–45

    • Victor Davis Hanson, The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won 

    • Peter Clark, Churchill’s Britain: From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight 

    • Victor Davis Hanson, The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won

    • Peter Clark, Churchill’s Britain: From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight

    • Charles R. Gallagher, Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front

    • Chester Nez, Code Talker

    • Sean McMeekin, Stalin’s War: A New History of WWII

2021

    • Michael Neiberg, Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe 

    • Tim Bouverie, Appeasement

    • John J. Stephan, Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan’s Plans for Conquest After Pearl Harbor

    • Gordon Thomas & Greg Lewis, Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule

    • Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power January 1933

    • Telford Taylor, Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir

    • Thomas Childers, Soldier From the War Returning: The Greatest Generation’s Troubled Homecoming from World War II

    • Tim Bouverie, Appeasement

    • Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission

    • Jim Bishop, FDR’s Last Year 

    • Adam Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 

    • Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II

2020

    • Mark Stoler, George C. Marshall 

    • Craig Symonds, WWII at Sea: A Global History

    • Sonia Purnell, A Woman of No Importance

    • Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present

    • Allen Packwood, How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War

    • Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile

    • Steven Ross, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America

    • John Bunker, Heroes in Dungarees: The Story of the American Merchant Marine in World War II

    • Phillips Payson O’Brien, The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff

    • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Brothers in Arms

    • Craig Nelson, Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness

2019

    • ​Aldolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Manheim’s 1943 translation

    • ​Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Battles of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery

    • David King, The Trial of Adolf Hitler: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany

    • Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

    • William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War

    • Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election Amid the Storm

    • Mark Ryan, The Hornet’s Sting: The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum

    • Mary Jo McConahay, The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America During World War II

    • James Q. Wilson, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law 

    • Linda Hervieux, Forgotten

    • Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: 20th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

    • Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951

    • Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich   

2018

    • Taylor Downing, Spies in The Sky: The Secret Battle for Ariel Intelligence During World War II

    • Irmgard A. Hunt, On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcomming  the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood

    • Jonathan Dimbleby, Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War

    • James D. Hornfischer, Neptune’s Inferno

    • Joseph Springer, Inferno: The Epic Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in WWII

    • Antony Beevor, Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge

    • Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust

2017

    • Charles Kaiser, The Cost of Courage​

    • David Motadel, Islam and Nazi Germany’s War 

    • R.D. Rosen, Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocausts Hidden Child Survivors

    • Francois Kersaudy, Norway 1940

    • Angelo Codivilla, Between the Alps and a Hard Place

    • Ben Macyntire, Double Cross

    • Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors-Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany 1941–1945

    • Longerrich & Bance, Goebbels: A Biography

    • Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940–1942

2016

    • Anonymous, A Woman In Berlin

    • Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

    • John Lukacs, The Legacy of the Second World War

    • Werner A. Herbert, Iron Coffins

    • Stanley G. Payne and Jesus Palacios, Franco: A Personal and Political Biography 

    • Robert Klara, FDR’S Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance

    • Charles Kaiser, The Cost of Courage

2015

    • Cornelius Ryan, The Last Battle 

    • Timothy D. Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

    • Wendy Lower, Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields 

    • Dan McMillan, How Could This Happen: Explaining the Holocaust 

    • Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide 

    • David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 

    • Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945

2014

    • Michael Korda, With Wings like Eagles

    • Ben MacIntyre, Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

    • Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (The Second World War)

    • Fitzroy Maclean, Eastern Approaches(other title: Escape to Adventures)

    • Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: Life of Heydrich

    • Benn Steil, The Battle of Bretton Woods

    • S.M Plokhy, Yalta: The Price of Peace

2013

    • Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken

    • Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

    • Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

    • Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire

    • Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food

    • Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

    • Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945

    • Lynn Olson, Citizens of London; Michael McKernan, Defending the Home front in World War II

2012

    • Ronald Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan

    • rank McLynn, The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942-45

    • Brian Garfield, The Thousand-mile war: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians

    • John Dower, War Without Mercy

    • Stuart D. Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army’s Victory that Shaped World War II

    • Craig L. Symonds, The Battle of Midway

    • Arthur Herman, Freedom Forge

2011

    • Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat

    • Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking

    • Haruo Tohmatsu and H.P. Wilmott, A Gathering Darkness: The Coming of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921-1942

    • Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China

    • Theodore White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder out of China

    • Walter Lord, Day of Infamy

    • Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor

    • Peter Mersky, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

    • Alistair Cooke, The American Home Front 1941-1942

2010

    • Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943

    • David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk

    • Charles Glass, Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944

    • Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier

    • Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

    • Walter Ford Carter, No Greater Sacrifice, No Greater Love: A Son’s Journey to Normandy

2009

    • Fitzroy MacLean, The Heretic: The Life and Times of Josip Broz-Tito by

    • Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941 – 44

    • Charles R. Gallagher, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII

    • Richard Overy, Russia’s War: A History of the Soviet Effort,1941-1945

    • John Lucaks, Hitler and Stalin

    • Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War

    • Russell H.S. Stolfi, Hitler’s Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted

    • Constantine Pleshakov, Stalin’s Folly: The Secret History of the German Invasion of Russia, June 1941

    • Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad

2008

    • Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won

    • Rick Atkinson , The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943

    • Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience

    • Nicholas W. Bethel, The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September, 1939

    • William Trotter, A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940

    • Tom Schachtman, The Phony War, 1939-1940

    • Allen Chew, The White Death

2007

    • Philip Gerard, Secret Soldiers

    • J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini

    • John Lukacs, The Last European War

    • Iris Origo, War in the Val d’Orcia

    • Ken Burns, “The War” (WWII Documentary)

2006

    • Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

    • James Bradley, Flyboys

    • E.B.Sledge, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa

    • D.K. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time

    • Paul Carell, The Foxes of the Desert

    • Vasily Grossman, A Writer at War, With the Red Army, 1941-1945

    • Marcus Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger

    • Philip Gerard, Secret Soldiers

    • Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn

2005

    • Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers

    • Dr. Francis de Marneffe, Last Boat from Bordeaux War Memoirs of Francis de Marneffe

    • Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower

    • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar

    • Margaret McMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

    • John Toland, Rising Sun

    • William Manchester, American Caesar [Douglas MacArthur]

2004

    • Origins of the Second World War by A.J. P. Taylor

    • Hitler by Joachim C. Fest