Dictionary of the Second World War Free

Though the Dictionary of the Second World War is a paperback reprint of an original which first appeared in hardback in 1989 and was revised in 1997, the title has not been reviewed in these columns before. It comprises 1,600 articles, the longer ones stretching to several pages and the shortest to a few lines, on all aspects of the war: battles, campaigns, leaders, generals, treaties, and weapons. Economic and political aspects are not neglected. A particularly useful feature is the inclusion of general articles on the leading belligerent countries and the principal theatres of war, thus allowing the reader who is unfamiliar with it to obtain an overall view. The introduction outlines the events that led to the war. The articles are well informed and sometimes outspoken. They included every heading your reviewer would have expected to find and some he did not. Inevitably there is the occasional lapse (one article demotes King Michael of Romania to a Prince, and another declares that late in the war HMS Renown was “plagiarised” – presumably they meant cannibalised?). The appendices comprise a series of chronologies of events in the various theatres of war, and a number of maps that predominantly depict general geography rather than the progress of the military campaigns. Published at a relatively low price considering its size (which has been cut down by the use of quite small print) this edition is probably aimed at the general reader rather than at libraries. Nonetheless, it would be useful in smaller collections that could not afford the hardback or one of its competitors. The binding, however, would probably not last long in a library.