In a burnished, driving prose, John Keegan chronicles the 1944 invasion of Normandy, from D-Day to the liberation of Paris. At the same time, he furthers his exploration of the "role which warfare and its institutions play in social life", by showing how each of the six armies, while resembling one another in purpose and authority, is a mirror of its own nation's values. Each army is shown at successive stages of the invasion in a battle sequence testing them to the utmost: the Americans in their terrifying night drop on the eve of landings; the Canadians at the Omaha beachhead; the English savagely fighting their way inland; the Germans in their surprisingly strong resistance; the Poles in exile desperately blocking the German escape route; and the French at last liberating their City of Light. This extraordinary book is a shining addition to the dramatic literature of men at war.
Keegan's brilliantly written account of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 is peppered with the author's childhood recollections, memorable prose, inspiring vocabulary, and expert commentery on the experience of and strategies behind this vital campaign. The author's expertise, however, is not matched by the narrator's ability. While Fred Williams's obvious age provides the verisimilitude of Keegan's eyewitness account, Williams suffers from shortness of breath, which prevents him from saying more than a few words without taking a breath. He even pauses occasionally between article and noun, causing his delivery to break into small phrases that frustratingly interrupt the cadence of meaning. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
