Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II
Paul Thomas Chamberlin
May 2025 · Basic Books · Narrated by Jefferson Mays
headphones
Audiobook
23 hr 19 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 2 hr 20 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
'Powerful, absorbing and endlessly thought-provoking' SINCLAIR MCKAY
A radical new history of history's most brutal struggle for survival between imperial powers.
In popular memory, World War II was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, and democratic order over the age of empires. Scorched Earth dispatches the myth of World War II as a 'good' war. Instead, it reveals the conflict as a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe. The war was sparked by German and Japanese invasions that threatened the old powers' dominance, not by Allied opposition to fascism. The Allies achieved victory not through pluck and democratic idealism but through savage firebombing raids on civilian targets and the slaughter of millions of Soviet soldiers. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as hyper-militarized new imperial powers, each laying claim to former Axis holdings across the globe before turning on one another and triggering a new forever war.
Dramatically rendered and persuasively argued, Scorched Earth shows that World War II marked the culmination of centuries of colonial violence and ushered in a new era of imperial struggle.
A radical new history of history's most brutal struggle for survival between imperial powers.
In popular memory, World War II was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, and democratic order over the age of empires. Scorched Earth dispatches the myth of World War II as a 'good' war. Instead, it reveals the conflict as a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe. The war was sparked by German and Japanese invasions that threatened the old powers' dominance, not by Allied opposition to fascism. The Allies achieved victory not through pluck and democratic idealism but through savage firebombing raids on civilian targets and the slaughter of millions of Soviet soldiers. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as hyper-militarized new imperial powers, each laying claim to former Axis holdings across the globe before turning on one another and triggering a new forever war.
Dramatically rendered and persuasively argued, Scorched Earth shows that World War II marked the culmination of centuries of colonial violence and ushered in a new era of imperial struggle.
About the author
Paul Thomas Chamberlin is an associate professor of history at Columbia University. The author of The Cold War's Killing Fields and The Global Offensive, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor. He lives in New York.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
