The first edition of this book sold more than one million copies in 35 years and helped shape the way Americans remembered a recent war. Now thoroughly revised by the acclaimed historian Stephen E. Ambrose to help introduce a new generation of readers to the Second World War, this book tells the story of Blitzkreig, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and Hiroshima better than any other. In words and pictures, it relates an epic struggle between the dueling forces of communism, fascism, and democracy. There is simply no better introduction to that titanic conflict available, and an estimated 70 percent of its text is new material by Ambrose. All ages can enjoy it, but the heavy graphic element makes this volume especially appealing to mature kids with an interest in history.



With the same epic narrative force that made his Undaunted Courage a New York Times bestseller with more than 417,000 copies in print, historian Stephen E. Ambrose has revised and updated The American Heritage New History of World War II for today's students, history buffs, veterans, and fascinated readers. Seamlessly incorporating a significant amount of new text and captions into the original text by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist C. L. Sulzberger, Ambrose has produced a comprehensive and riveting account of the six-year global conflict that transformed world politics and shaped the course of modern history. Here are the personalities and strategies of Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, and Stalin brought vividly to life; the military tactics of Eisenhower, Rommel, and Patton; battles from El Alamein to D-Day to Guadalcanal; completely new chapters on the atrocities of the Holocaust and the secret war of espionage and weaponry, much of it from top-secret sources made available since the end of the Cold War. Hundreds of haunting images from renowned war photographers on the line of battle as well as new color maps illustrate Ambrose's masterful text; together they brilliantly evoke in this definitive single volume the courage, commitment, military genius, and true horror of war. This new edition will endure as a major contribution to World War II scholarship from one of the most highly regarded and widely read historians of our time.