Not as good as "Origins of the Second World War". Part of the fault lies with the format: 212 pages is about WWII and this is the best. The next section is "Warlords", a series of biographical sketches, originally for UK radio, depicting the leaders in the Allied/Axis countries. The weakest section of the book is the final third, composed of essay book reviews on topics related to the war and the Cold War.

Taylor has interesting, and I think, valuable things to say like Russia wasn't out to necessarily spread communism, but needed a belt of security after being invaded by France-1812, Britian and France-1856, Germany-1914 to 1917, Britian and France-1919 and finally Germany, again, 1941. Or that the bombing campaign against Germany actually hurt Britian's war effort more than Germany because of the diversion of resources for a tactic of little military value. But when Taylor asserts things like the Russians promoted the Berlin Airlift because they left Russians in the air control towers or that the Soviets invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia to suppress a return to fascism then he sacrifices his credibility for shock value. Taylor has a wide streak of self promotion in his character and it sometimes gets the better of him and, I think, he is an historian prone to national hatreds, like his hatred of Germany until the early 50's and I suspect America for what it did to Britian's economy during and after the war. However he is also an historian of much insight and often fine judgement. He can write well, not a talent ranked high among the current crop of historians. ( )