Allies in War: Britain and America Against the Axis Powers, 1940-1945

The book is a combination diplomatic-military history of the American-Anglo alliance and a summary of the war against the Axis countries. It's a synthesis of the latest scholarship and avoids the justification, distortion and ego building that some participants propagated while writing their memoirs after the war. Mark Stoler's book is reputed to be the first book that details the American-Anglo alliance that includes both European and Pacific theaters. Even though the British had a small physical footprint in the Pacific, Churchill had major influence on FDR that would greatly influence the evolution of that front. Mr Stoler, a noted professor and author, starts his story about these two key allies back in the days of the American Revolution and briefly describes the often hostile and peaceful rivalries the two countries had up to the beginning of WWII. The author emphasizes this period to show that it's understandable why the two countries during the war didn't always agree. Though there may be a common language, there were issues like Britain's imperial nature, self protectionism and self interest that would disrupt coalition harmony. The premise of this book is to show that the alliance though imperfect was good enough to help defeat the Axis powers. Within the framework of describing the key events of the war, the author will show the positive nature of the alliance will overshadow the negatives to produce a victory. Though the author mentions the negative instances, he spends more time illuminating the positive events that kept the alliance together. I've wondered what FDR would have done if the alliance broke apart in 1943 over Italy, Operation Overlord and Operation Dragoon. Would the US gone into Italy or if we were already there, would we have stayed there. Would the US have tried a French invasion on its own or would we have pulled out and concentrated on the Pacific front. Regretably, Stalin and the Russian Front is mentioned sparingly during the war but is brought to the forefront during the discussion of the postwar era. The author touches on key points of the evolution of the rise to superpower status of the US and Soviet Union toward the end of the war and postwar while at the same time saw the decline of Great Britain as a world and colonial power. (Too bad the author wasn't writing about the Grand Alliance as his main theme for the relationship of the big three is fascinating and disappointing at the same time.) The author extends his coverage to include the impact of Communism had on the US during the Korean and Viet Nam Wars. There are a few photos and an extensive Notes and Bibliography section to aid the reader if further research is wanted. There is nothing new in the informaion presented as was noted by the author in his Preface but the presentation is comprehensive and so well done in regards to not only the relationship of the two countries but as a summary of the war that a 5 star rating is warranted. If you're a newcom

Mark Stoler's Allies in War: Britain and America against the Axis Powers, 1940-1945 (A Hodder Arnold Publication) is a solid study and presentation of the `special relationship' (the Anglo-American alliance), and to a much lesser extent the `Grand Alliance' (Anglo-American-Soviet alliance), in World War Two. In brief, Stoler paints a lucid picture of how the Allies determined and executed the policies, both military and political, that resulted in the defeat of the German-Italian-Japanese axis, and subsequent dismantling and governance of lands once under the rule of the axis powers. Stoler is a historian of the highest quality, using a wide variety of sources on which to develop his study. The `select bibliography' presented is 22 pp. in length and includes both published and archival works. Stoler cites ideas/concepts in his prose extensively but not distractingly so; resulting in 17 pages of `notes', annotated by chapter after the formal prose. This is an academic study with enough literary flair in the storytelling to make it enjoyable by a broad audience interested in how the Allies defeated the Axis. Potential readers should be aware upfront that Stoler does not tell his story from the perspective of `small' (battalion or smaller) or `moderate' (regiment to corps) sized units. Rather Allies in War is told from army group, theatre, and political leadership levels. The author utilized a similar approach with his Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II, another tour-de-force study of the Anglo-American alliance in the Second World War. Stoler places all of his discussion within the larger Grand Alliance context, although as he points out in his Preface, his job is not to describe in detail the Soviet components of the Allied adventure (that is the focus of a sister book by Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945), but rather to cover in detail the Anglo-American components and how these were influence by their third partner. This approach is critical to the bigger picture success of Stoler's book. It is also important to note that Stoler provides a unique examination of the Anglo-American alliance and it's function alone, and within the Grand Alliance, since he tackles not only the European Theatre, which is so commonly covered in the Anglo-American context, but also the Pacific Theatre. As Stoler notes, too many readers and historian tend to treat the European and Pacific Theatres as distinct entities and compartmentalize them in ways that do not reflect the actualities of the period. While the Allied approach was to focus on Europe (German-Italian dominated theatre) first, the Pacific was always in the American mind and thus competed for policy and resources. The two theatres of Allied activity are in actuality impossible to separate and Stoler does a fabulous job showing the reader how intimately connected the two competing theatres w