In the original dustsheet. Binding the same as the dustsheet.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Though somewhat dated now, in comparison to material written after the end of the Cold War, John Erickson’s work remains one of the more comprehensive accounts of the Eastern Front, especially from the Soviet point of view. The book has some issues since it was forced to rely on Soviet “historical” accounts, which, while they cover the basics, were always written with a political end in mind (to wit, that the Soviet Union never made any major errors, since, by its very nature, the Soviet Union was perfect). The skewed nature of many of the sources (both German — the Germans tended to cover their mistakes by blaming everything on Hitler — and Soviet) forced Erickson to make some judgement calls that turned out to not be correct, but overall his account is fairly well balanced. The biggest complaint I have about this book and its companion volume (The Road to Berlin) is that you really need a map in front of you as you read the material, and Erickson provides few maps, and most of those are pretty rudimentary. I strongly recommend you have a copy of the West Point Atlas or some similarly detailed set of maps available as you read this book, otherwise it’s all too easy to become bewildered and lost amid the multitudionous Soviet place names.