Overview

November 1942 is an intimate history of the pivotal phase of World War Two. An intimate history of the most important month of the Second World War - perhaps the century - 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 - forty characters in all. We also witness the launch of SS James Oglethorpe; the fate of U-604, a German submarine; the building of the first nuclear reactor; and the making of Casablanca. Not since Englund's own The Beauty and the Sorrow has a book given us one of the most dramatic periods of human history in all its immensity and emotional range.

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9781847924810

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Reviews

In four decades of studying war, I've never read such a remarkable book * The Washington Post on The Beauty and the Sorrow * A literary as well as a historical achievement * Guardian on The Beauty and the Sorrow * Intense and bighearted. ... The accounts of [these] lives can be terrifying or stirring, but are most fully alive in Englund's accumulation of small moments, stray details * New York Times on The Beauty and the Sorrow * A wonderfully wide and rich mosaic of personal experience from the First World War * Antony Beevor on The Beauty and the Sorrow * Peter Englund is one of the finest writers of our time on the tactics, the killing and the psychology of war. In The Beauty and the Sorrow he superbly and humanely brings to life all the tragedy, chaos, death and gunsmoke of battle * Simon Sebag Montefiore on The Beauty and the Sorrow *

An astonishing achievement * Antony Beevor * By interweaving the detailed experiences of 39 individuals from all parts of the conflict, Englund presents an extraordinary panorama of this pivotal moment. A haunting narrative imaginatively conceived, brilliantly told * Julia Boyd * **PRAISE FOR THE BEAUTY AND THE SORROW** In four decades of studying war, I've never read such a remarkable book * Washington Post * A literary as well as a historical achievement * Guardian * Intense and bighearted. ... The accounts of [these] lives can be terrifying or stirring, but are most fully alive in Englund's accumulation of small moments, stray details * New York Times *

Author Information

Peter Englund (Author) Peter Englund is a historian, journalist and member of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is the author of ten books, most recently The Beauty and the Sorrow- An Intimate History of the First World War, and has won various literary prizes for his work including the August prize for the best Swedish book of the year and the Sela Lagerlof Literary Prize. Peter Graves (Translator) Peter Graves was born in Wales. He studied German and Swedish at the University of Aberdeen and later taught Scandinavian languages, literature and culture at the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He has been awarded a number of prizes for his translation work.

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