In this brilliant narrative of the Warsaw Uprising, British historian Norman Davies offers a stirring account of one of the defining moments of the 20th century.
1944. WWII was tearing Europe apart. To the Wehrmacht, Nazi-occupied Warsaw represented the the last line of defence against the advancing Red Army. So, when the Red Army reached the river Vistula, the people of Warsaw believed that liberation had come. The city waited for salvation. Little did it know, it was in the eye of a storm.
Instead of liberating, the Soviets remained where they were, allowing the Wehrmacht time to regroup and Hitler to order that the city of Warsaw be razed to the ground. For 63 days the Resistance fought on in the cellars and the sewers. Defenceless citizens were slaughtered in their tens of thousands. One by one the city's monuments were reduced to rubble, watched by Soviet troops on the other bank of the river.
Vividly and authoritatively told by one of our greatest historians, Rising '44 is the poignant narrative of Warsaw's 63 days.
Norman Davies was for many years Professor of History at the School of Slavonic Studies, University of London. He is the author of the acclaimed Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe and the Number One bestseller Europe: A History. His previous books, which include Rising '44:The Battle for Warsaw, The Isles: A History and God's Playground: A History of Poland, have been translated worldwide. From 1997 to 2004 he was Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford; he is now Professor at the Jagiellonian University at Kraków, and an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy. He lives in Oxford and Kraków.