Re: Why the Allies Won
Overly is not bad. But, you have to still take what he writes in this particular book with a bit of skeptisim. He also tends in many areas to reguritate well worn versions of history, some of which have either been revised or, downplayed in more considered works.
Some examples include chapter 2 Little Ships and Lonely Aircraft...The Battle for the Seas where he makes much of the early carrier battles of the Pacific, Coral Sea and Midway in particular, but then virtually leaves Guadalcanal unmentioned. This is significant as Guadalcanal is now generally considered the turning point of the Pacific by historians as it marks the first Allied offensive and their taking the initiative away from the Japanese; something Coral Sea and Midway did not do despite Japanese losses.
You might compare Chapter 3 on Stalingrad and Kursk to more recent works by Glantz. Overly makes Zhukov out to be a singular military genus ignoring his debacles with AGC and AGN even while defeating 6th Army at Stalingrad. Kursk likewise is made out a far greater Soviet victory while the follow-on Soviet counteroffensive, where the Soviets really did shine, is largely ignored.
Chapter 4 entitled The Means to Victory: Bombers and Bombing says it all. This is a hyperbolic statement at best. While the strategic bomber campaign had significant effects on the German economy it was not a war winner on its own.
Basically, the book overall sets too optimistic a view of the Allied war machine. The problem with it does not lie so much in the details Overly gives you but in his analysis of their significance. Overly has his facts straight but, like many other historians that seemingly have an agenda he uses these facts to reach ill-thoughout conclusions rather than analyzing them in a dispassionate manner.
So long as you go into the book with this view you will glean alot of valuable information from it.
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