Stephen W. Sears

#2

1999

World War II was the most intensively photographed conflict in history. Military and press photographers, propagandists, camera-wielding soldiers and civilians--all took the opportunity to record the tumultuous events of 1939-45. The scenes they captured of mass suffering and individual heroism, of atrocious cruelty and humanitarianism against the odds, of hate and comradership, misery and hope, remain undiminished in their intensity and constitute a vital record of an extra ordinary period. World War II: A Photographic History features 900 clearly captioned images selected from a wide variety of sources, many of which are seen here for the first time. Every major theatre of conflict is covered, from the ice seas of the Arctic Circle to the jungles of the South Pacific, from the deserts of North Africa to the steppes of Russia. Throughout, proper historical grounding is given by an informative, indexed commentary summarizing the many complex events of the period.

#3

2004

In the middle of December 1944, at a time when most people thought Germany was finished, the German army launched a surprise attack against the American army in Belgium. Thousands of crack troops and large numbers of tanks breached the thin American lines and drove deep into Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge would be a brutal, bloody struggle in a dismal winter landscape against an enemy imbued with Adolf Hitler's fanatic conviction that victory could be snatched from defeat. Before it ended, the Battle of the Bulge would involve over a million men and thousands of guns, tanks and other fighting vehicles. In that dark December, fighting both bitter winter storms and a grim and determined enemy, the American soldier faced his greatest challenge in the European war.