No one knew it was going to be that bad. World War II killed some 60 million people -- 20 million of them soldiers -- and inflicted wounds, bereavement, poverty and suffering on countless others.
But such destruction was an impossible to imagine in advance as it was for young pilots-in-training to imagine their coming fiery deaths; or for Jews to foresee their last moments in the gas chambers; or for parents to imagine their children killed by the mortars and bullets and other munitions that factories churned out in such enormous quantities. As impossible, perhaps, as it is for us to imagine a disaster of similar scale in our future.
The War presents an unforgettable mosaic of memoirs from soldiers, citizens and historians, detailing the immense tragedy that stretched from the Western Front to the Pacific Theater.
Editor:
Clint Willis has been a climber and an armchair mountaineer since he was ten years old. His writing about technology, finance and the outdoors has appeared in more than 100 publications, including Men's Journal, Outside, Rock & Ice and The New York Times, and he is a contributing editor of Forbes ASAP and Worth magazines. He lives with his wife and two sons in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
