Blood and Ruins

'Overy has written many fine books, but Blood and Ruins is his masterpiece. It puts all previous single-volume works of the conflict in the shade' Saul David, The TimesHow war on a huge scale was fought, supplied, paid for, supported by mass mobilization and morally justified forms the heart of this new account. Above all, Overy explains the bitter cost for those involved in fighting, and the exceptional level of crime and atrocity that marked these imperial projects, the war and its aftermath. This war was as deadly for civilians as it was for the military, a war to the death over the future of the global order.