Masters and Commanders
How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945

Grand Designs. Andrew Roberts is a first class historian, I have simply loved all of his books and share a common interest in periods from the Napoleonic Wars to the World Wars. I also really appreciate what he does for history, saving it from its political wash. However, his Masters and Commanders b......more

This ought to have been subtitled: "How General Marshall prevented Roosevelt, Churchill, and Brooke from making things much, much worse". This was not the author's intent, as his primary aim seems to have been to raise Brooke's reputation, but time and time again in this narrative, Marshall either k......more

Very thoroughly researched and entertainingly written, Andrew Roberts presents a detailed look into how the two Western democracies formulated the grand strategy that guided the prosecution of the war. He does not exclude China and the Soviet Union in his narrative but the majority of the book is de......more

War narratives have a tendency to turn glowing, sometimes even sentimental: high prose about titanic struggles, gleaming machinery, dramatic speeches and heroism transcending ordinary humanity. Masters and Commanders is distinctly anything but. Here, you'll find no grand dramatic prose, or even much......more