Mr Shirer's encyclopedic work is very different from other established treatises on the subject of WWII in two notable aspects:

- Being a US journalist stationed in Germany and covering the political life, he was actually present at many historical moments up to the point when US citizens became personae non gratae. This gives a unique personal perspective to the events we largely know about from the archives and documents.

- There is hardly a factual statement in this massive (1,200 pages) volume that is not annotated with a reference to a source. This makes it a treasure trove for further research and also shows a considerable effort by the author to stick to the documented facts rather than to "established truths" offering them at face value.

Surely, the work is not new and more information has been uncovered in the decades since its publication but it is still wonderfully relevant and complete in its coverage of that fateful period of the European History. If you want to know more about it, you absolutely should read this book - it is a great complement to many other definitive works.