Lieutenant-Colonel Bauer's history of World War 11 is a classic work. Of all the great histories, Bauer's is unique in its combination of wide-ranging scholarship with a rare objectivity – for the author's background as a Swiss historian has undoubtedly enabled him to survey dispassionately the claims and controversies, arising out of nationally centred histories, that have tended to dominate so many accounts in the past. However, this detachment in no way detracts from the force of the work; the conclusions which Bauer reaches, having scrupulously weighed all the evidence, are always incisive and illuminating, and may well appear controversial to Anglo-Saxon readers.