Max Hastings

Operación Biting arroja luz a uno de los momentos históricos más emocionantes y menos conocidos de la segunda guerra mundial. En su nuevo libro, Max Hastings narra la historia de la Operación Biting,

«Este es sobre todo un libro de experiencias humanas», nos dice Max Hastings, autor de libros tan valiosos como Armagedon, Némesis y La guerra de Churchill, que ha querido culminar su carrera como in

El eminente historiador militar sirMax Hastings escoge en este estimulante e inspirador relato las vidas de dieciséis "guerreros" de diferente extracción social y nacionalidad de los últimos tres siglos, desde las Guerras Napoleonicas a los Altos del Golan, pasando por las guerras mundiales o Vietnam, seleccionados por su coraje o su extraordinaria experiencia belica.En el curso de cuatro decadas escribiendo sobre la guerra, Max Hastings ha desarrollado una fascinacion por las hazañas en los campos de batalla (en tierra, mar o aire) y, por supuesto, por los militares que las protagonizaron. Para ello aborda las biografias de soldados iconicos como el general y escritor napoleonico baron Marcellin de Marbot (inspiracion del brigadier Gerard de Conan Doyle); de sir Harry Smith, cuya esposa española, Juana, se convirtio en su compañera militar en mas de una campaña; del teniente John Chard, un modesto ingeniero convertido en el heroe insospechado de Rorkes Drift durante la guerra anglo-zulu, e inmortalizado en el cine por Stanley Baker; el jefe de escuadron Guy Gibson, piloto cuyo heroismo en los cielos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial le granjeo la admiracion de su nacion, pero pocos amigos; o el energico teniente coronel virginiano John Paul Vann, uno de los asesores militares estadounidenses mas influyentes en la guerra de Vietnam, verso suelto del ejercito con una turbulenta vida personal.Para imponerse en el campo de batalla, cualquier ejercito necesita individuos capaces de mostrar un coraje por encima de lo comun, pero ¿que es lo comun en la guerra? En Guerreros, Max Hastings trata de dar respuesta a esa pregunta, y como esa percepcion ha cambiado a lo largo del tiempo. Al tiempo que honra hechos extraordinario valor, posa su mirada inquisitiva sobre la entrega de condecoraciones al valor y en el por que estos prominentes guerreros rara vez dan la talla como lideres.

Vietnam fue el conflicto moderno más divisivo del mundo occidental. Max Hastings ha pasado los últimos tres años entrevistando a decenas de participantes de todos los bandos, investigando documentos y memorias estadounidenses y vietnamitas para crear una narrativa epica de una lucha epica. Retrata las escenas de Dien Bien Phu, el ataque aereo de Vietnam del Norte y batallas menos conocidas, como el baño de sangre en Daido. Aqui estan las realidades vividas de la lucha en medio de la selva y los arrozales que mataron a dos millones de personas. Muchos han tratado esta guerra como una tragedia para los Estados Unidos, sin embargo, Hastings no olvida a los vietnamitas: en esta obra hay testimonios de guerrilleros Vietcong, paracaidistas del sur, chicas de alterne de Saigon y estudiantes de Hanoi, junto con soldados de infanteria de Dakota del Sur, infantes de marina de Carolina del Norte y pilotos de Arkansas. No hay otra obra sobre la guerra de Vietnam que haya mezclado una narrativa politica y militar del conflicto con experiencias personales conmovedoras: el sello de Max Hastings que los lectores conocen tan bien.

Un thriller histórico sobre la que pudo haber sido la mayor catástrofe global. En este nuevo libro, Max Hastings se centra en la crisis de los misiles de Cuba, los trece días de octubre de 1962 que m

La historia de la última gran campaña de la segunda guerra mundial: la batalla por la conquista de Alemania, «que comenzó como el mayor hecho militar del siglo XX y acabó como su mayor tragedia human

No hubo una Segunda guerra mundial, nos dice Max Hastings, autor de Armagedón, sino dos, completamente distintas: la que se desarrolló en Europa y la que tuvo por escenario el oriente de Asia y el Pacifico, con mas de treinta millones de muertos. Este libro nos habla de esta "otra" guerra, no menos dramatica y trascendental, pero hasta hoy demasiado olvidada. Basandose en un gran trabajo de documentacion y en la recogida de testimonios de los supervivientes, Hastings recupera esta epopeya, en una sucesion de episodios que van desde la historia del "ejercito olvidado" de los britanicos en Birmania hasta la invasion sovietica de Manchuria, pasando por los sufrimientos del pueblo chino, las grandes batallas navales, la brutalidad de los campos de prisioneros y de los barcos de la muerte, la lucha por las Filipinas, la sangrienta conquista de Iwo Jima, la destruccion de las ciudades japonesas incendiadas por los bombardeos con "napalm" o el drama secreto que se desarrollo en torno al palacio imperial de Tokio en los dias de la capitulacion.

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Max Hastings nos trae uno de los capítulos más dramáticos olvidados de la segunda guerra mundial.En agosto de 1942, una asediada Malta estuvo a pocas semanas de rendirse porque sus 300.000 habitantes ya no podian ser alimentados. Churchill tomo la decision personal de salvar a toda costa la isla fortaleza. No se trataba simplemente de una cuestion de estrategia, sino de prestigio nacional, cuando la fortuna y la moral de Gran Bretaña habian caido a su punto mas bajo.Por las paginas de este libro veremos desfilar catastroficos hundimientos de buques, junto con luchas por rescatar a los supervivientes y salvar los barcos siniestrados. Max Hastings describe esta historia como una de las mas extraordinarias que jamas haya contado. Hasta las ultimas horas, ningun participante de ninguno de los dos bandos pudo saber cual seria el resultado de una epopeya de suspense y valor en tiempos de guerra.

Los desembarcos del 6 de junio de 1944, el Día D, marcaron el comienzo de la Operación Overlord, la batalla inicial por la liberación de Europa. Max Hastings, uno de los principales y más aclamados historiadores del periodo, cuestiona y desmonta muchas leyendas en este magistral estudio que reune los relatos de los testigos presenciales y los supervivientes de ambos bandos, ademas de una gran cantidad de fuentes y documentos previamente sin explorar. Overlord proporciona al lector una perspectiva brillante y controvertida sobre la devastadora batalla por Normandia y nos lega una de las obras mas completas y alabadas sobre los acontecimientos. Un absoluto referente historiografico.

No hubo una Segunda guerra mundial, nos dice Max Hastings, autor de Armagedón, sino dos, completamente distintas: la que se desarrolló en Europa y la que tuvo por escenario el oriente de Asia y el Pacifico, con mas de treinta millones de muertos. Este libro nos habla de esta otra guerra, no menos dramatica y trascendental, pero hasta hoy demasiado olvidada. Basandose en un gran trabajo de documentacion y en la recogida de testimonios de los supervivientes, Hastings recupera esta epopeya, en una sucesion de episodios que van desde la historia del ejercito olvidado de los britanicos en Birmania hasta la invasion sovietica de Manchuria, pasando por los sufrimientos del pueblo chino, las grandes batallas navales, la brutalidad de los campos de prisioneros y de los barcos de la muerte, la lucha por las Filipinas, la sangrienta conquista de Iwo Jima, la destruccion de las ciudades japonesas incendiadas por los bombardeos con napalm o el drama secreto que se desarrollo en torno al palacio imperial de Tokio en los dias de la capitulacion.

En 'La guerra secreta', Max Hastings presenta un yeso en todo el mundo de personajes y sagas extraordinarias de inteligencia y resistencia para crear una nueva perspectiva sobre el conflicto más grande en la historia. "Tan adictivo como cualquier thriller de espias, el logro de Hastings es especialmente impresionante, porque ha producido el mejor de volumen que se haya escrito sobre el tema" (Sunday Times)

The seminal narrative history of the Second World War from one of our finest historians. A book which depicts what the war was like to live through -- whether you were a starving child in Leningrad, a soldier in North Africa, or a civilian in Dresden. With its battlefields dispersed across the globe, the vastness of the Second World War was unparalleled. This was a time when nearly everything which civilised people took for granted in peace time was destroyed. Between 1939 and 1945, around 27,000 people died, every single day -- most of them on the Eastern Front. Many men and women who lived through this catastrophe struggled to find the words to describe what they witnessed daily. Many turned to a phrase, which although a cliche, summed things up: "All Hell's Let Loose!" In this magisterial single-volume history of a war that continues to fascinate and horrify us in equal measure, Max Hastings brings together many different human stories, and touches on almost every country in the world. Hastings stresses that it is impossible to compare the suffering of people during WWII -- it would have seemed monstrous to a British soldier facing a mortar barrage, with his comrades dying around him, to be told that Russian casualties were many thousand times greater. However, there were some aspects of wartime experience that were universal: fear and grief; the conscription of young men and women sent to new lives remote from their choice, genocide and mass migration. All Hell Let Loose charts these experiences, along with the numerous battles on land, at sea and in the air, all over the world, that formed the greatest conflict in human history. Using a huge range of sources, including new material from Russia, Italy and Poland, All Hell Let Loose is not only a magnificent and movingly written book; it is arguably one of the most important books on the Second World War ever published

Finest years Churchill as Warlord. Pre-eminent military historian Max Hastings presents Winston Churchill as he has never been seen before. Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering. Himself a hero, he expected others to show themselves heroes also, and was often disappointed. It is little understood how low his popularity fell in 1942, amid an unbroken succession of battlefield defeats. Some of his closest colleagues joined a clamour for him to abandon his role directing the war machine. Hastings paints a wonderfully vivid image of the Prime Minister in triumph and tragedy. He describes the second Dunkirk in 1940, when Churchills impulsiveness threatened to lose Britain almost as many troops in north-west France as had been saved from the beaches; his wooing of the Americans, and struggles with the Russians. British wartime unity was increasingly tarnished by workers unrest, with many strikes in mines and key industries. By looking at Churchill from the outside in, through the eyes of British soldiers, civilians and newspapers - and also those of Russians and Americans - Hastings provides new perspectives on the greatest Englishman. He condemns as folly Churchills attempt to promote mass uprisings in occupied Europe, and details Unthinkable - his amazing 1945 plan for an Allied offensive against the Russians to liberate Poland. Here is an intimate and affectionate portrait of Churchill as Britains saviour, but also an unsparing examination of the wartime nation which he led and the performance of its armed forces.

From the best-selling author of All Hell Let Loose comes a masterly chronicle of one of the most devastating international conflicts of the 20th century and how its people were affected. `This is a comprehensive, spellbinding, surprisingly intimate, and altogether magnificent historical narrative.' Tim O'Brien Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and less familiar battles such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed 2 million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners' victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings' readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.

The Sunday Times bestseller'One of the most dramatic forgotten chapters of the war, as told in a new book by the incomparable Max Hastings' DAILY MAILIn August 1942, beleaguered Malta was within weeks of surrender to the Axis, because its 300,000 people could no longer be fed. Churchill made a personal decision that at all costs, the 'island fortress' must be saved. This was not merely a matter of strategy, but of national prestige, when Britain's fortunes and morale had fallen to their lowest ebb.

A gripping new collection from Max Hastings that puts you at the heart of the battle Compelling Daily Mail An unmissable read Sunday Times

On 6 June 1944 when the allied armies landed on D Day the Second World War had already lasted almost five years

Vietnam became the Western worlds most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and less familiar battles such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minhs warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed 2 million people.Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas.No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.