The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943
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- James Holland is the pre-eminent military and WWII historian of our time-the successor to Antony Beevor, Max Hastings, and Stephen Ambrose. His masterful storytelling is matched by the depth of his research, which often reframes history. His choice of main characters presents a vivid picture of the war on all sides at both strategic and on-the-ground levels. - The Savage Storm is the first book devoted solely to the southern portion of the Italian Campaign. Rick Atkinson's The Day of Battle (2007) covers the war over 12 months, from Sicily to the liberation of Rome. Holland vividly chronicles the three brutal, yet crucial, months from September-December 1943 in more detail and with more insight than any previous historian. It's essential for a full understanding and appreciation of WWII. Holland's next book, in Fall 2024, will complete his narrative of the Italian Campaign, from Monte Cassino in January 1944 to the liberation of Rome on June 4th. - Holland takes his on-the-ground chronicling of battle to a new level by narrating the conflict almost entirely through the contemporary eyes of those who lived through it, using in-the-moment diaries, letters, reports, and other documents from generals, privates, and citizens alike, which give immediate responses to events not knowing what will come next. Key characters appear throughout, so we become connected to them, and the book becomes ever more a human drama. - Holland has been pushing the envelope with his use of primary sources for some time, but The Savage Storm sets a new and vivid standard in the writing about war. - The intensive use of first-person accounts leads Holland to re-assess long-established narratives about the Italian Campaign. He lifts up the reputations of Mark Clark and other Allied leaders, showing how impossibly difficult the Campaign was-challenging topography; brutal conditions; and especially a lack of Allied support in shipping and materiel, resources that were being hoarded for the cross-channel invasion of France to come. - The Italian Campaign became the focal point of WWII. Germany withdrew entirely from the Soviet Union by February 1944 and D-Day wasn't until June, so the war hinged in Italy for several key months, and more lives were lost there than in any other theatre of the war. - Holland always walks the battlefields he describes; even years later they retain their topography and tell their own stories. For The Savage Storm, he made multiple trips to the Italian battle theatre, and his vivid descriptions are all the more authoritative for his having been there. - Holland's books are better illustrated-with maps and photographs-than any other military books on the market. He has taken map research to a new level, using aerial photographs during the war to illustrate troop movements. The imagery makes his books truly definitive and distinctive. - A house author with three further books under contract, Holland's audience in the US grows with each book. Normandy '44 has now sold over 50,000 copies in all editions and was the bestselling book on the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Big Week has sold almost 30,000 copies in all editions, and his latest, Brothers in Arms, has sold over 20,000 copies. Each of his books has been a main selection of Military Book Club. - Holland's WWII podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, has reached 2 million downloads, and a discrete U.S. version of it has been recently launched, so its audience here will grow substantially in the coming months. - Holland directs the popular Chalke Valley History Festival each summer in the UK.