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Overlord
- D-Day and the Battle for Normandy 1944
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Europe
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The complete magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. This shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world - soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children. Reflecting Max Hastings' 35 years of research on World War II, All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events but focuses chiefly upon human experience.
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40 hours long yet still felt too short.
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Gripping, balanced, multifaceted
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Warriors
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With an introduction read by Max Hastings. An exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of 16 ‘warriors’ from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience by the eminent military historian, author and ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings. Over the course of 40 years of writing about war, Max Hastings has grown fascinated by outstanding deeds of derring-do on the battlefield (land, sea, or air) - and by their practitioners.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Crikey. Couldn't get past the Introduction.
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Preeminent military historian Max Hastings presents Winston Churchill as he has never been seen before. Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Compelling listening marred by Sir Max’s favourite hobbyhorse plus a hint of ‘faint praise’
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In early summer 1982 - winter in the South Atlantic - Argentina's military junta invades the Falklands. Within days, a Royal Navy Task Force is assembled and dispatched. This is the story of D Squadron, 22 SAS, commanded by Cedric Delves. The relentless tempo of events defies belief. Raging seas, inhospitable glaciers, hurricane-force winds, helicopter crashes, raids behind enemy lines - the Squadron prevailed against them all, but the cost was high.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A great account but let down by the production
- By richard rochester on 12-06-19
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5 out of 5 stars
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40 hours long yet still felt too short.
- By MR on 10-09-16
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Unvarnished truth in painful detail
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping, balanced, multifaceted
- By Jim on 04-08-14
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
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1 out of 5 stars
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Crikey. Couldn't get past the Introduction.
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On 25 June, 1950, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A missing piece of history
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With an introduction read by Max Hastings. A companion volume to his best-selling ‘Armageddon’, Max Hastings’ account of the battle for Japan is a masterful military history. Featuring the most remarkable cast of commanders the world has ever seen, the dramatic battle for Japan of 1944-45 was acted out across the vast stage of Asia: Imphal and Kohima, Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Soviet assault on Manchuria.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Churchill's history of the Second World War is, and will remain, the definitive work. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Extremely good listening
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The Falklands War was one of the strangest in British history - 28,000 men sent to fight for a tiny relic of empire 8,000 miles from home. At the time, many Britons saw it as a tragic absurdity, but the British victory confirmed the quality of British arms and boosted the political fortunes of the Conservative government.
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A great overview
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On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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A History of Britain, Volume 1
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not good for a casual listen
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Chastise
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A brand-new history of the Dambusters raid from best-selling and critically acclaimed military historian Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in northwest Germany by the RAF’s 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain’s national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who led the raid. In the 21st century, however, he urges that we should see the Dambusters in much more complex shades.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 384
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war. Nineteen fourteen was a year of unparalleled change. The year that diplomacy failed, imperial Europe was thrown into its first modernised warfare and white-gloved soldiers rode in their masses across pastoral landscapes into the blaze of machine guns. What followed were the costliest days of the entire war.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommended
- By Tommy on 08-04-17
Summary
With an introduction read by Max Hastings. The famous D-Day landings of 6 June, 1944, marked the beginning of Operation Overlord, the battle for the liberation of Europe.
Republished as part of the Pan Military Classics series, Max Hastings’ acclaimed account overturns many traditional legends in this memorable study. Drawing together the eyewitness accounts of survivors from both sides, plus a wealth of previously untapped sources and documents, Overlord provides a brilliant, controversial perspective on the devastating battle for Normandy. Max Hastings, author of over 20 books, was born in 1945. He was a scholar at Charterhouse and University College, Oxford, before working as foreign correspondent for newspapers and BBC television, reporting from over 50 countries. He was editor of the Daily Telegraph for almost a decade, and then for six years edited the Evening Standard. He has won many awards for his journalism, particularly for his dispatches from the South Atlantic in 1982. He was knighted in 2002.
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What listeners say about Overlord
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ronan
- 06-06-15
Excellent unbiased account of Overlord
Great audiobook. Well read. It would be great if you could include a PDFs of the campaign maps.
10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dave
- 29-06-17
Top author, top performance
Hastings is a fantastic author, and the readers for his books on audible are generally good considering the usual monotonous treatment history audiobooks in particular are often given. Here though the reader goes above and beyond and really brings life to the stories that Hastings tells so well. Highly recommended, and more of the same please!
8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- J
- 21-05-15
A True Masterpiece
For anyone with even a passing interest in military history and especially World War 2 this is a must have in their library. From a truly remarkable historian who has written numerous well rounded and informative narrative this look at one of the pivotal moments of WW2 is fantastic.
With a well balanced look from both an Axis and Allies viewpoint the book is raised to the highest heights possible by the narration of Barnaby Edwards. With an easy to listen to voice and the ability to keep me engaged on a long drive without losing focus only adds to this great piece of historical writing.
10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- EJ
- 05-10-14
Max Hastings is a credit to history
If you could sum up Overlord in three words, what would they be?
Informative, horrifying, brilliant.
What did you like best about this story?
Max Hastings brings to life what happened on those terrible days in Normandy. A very informative book on D Day and after. A book I just kept on reading to the end.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A. DONALDSON
- 03-09-17
Excellent book. Well read
Very good account of D day from all sides. A balanced account showing the difficulties the allies faced. Not afraid to show the shortcomings of allied troops and equipment compared to some other accounts. A good balance of soldier accounts and the overall strategy of the invasion
2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- richard mckenzie
- 04-12-15
A Remarkable Listen
What did you like most about Overlord?
It give an incredible overview of the thoughts and opinions of those brave men who stormed the beaches on D-Day
What did you like best about this story?
The mix of personal accounts combined with Army and Battalion level detail
What does Barnaby Edwards bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
His richness of tone, ability to with between accents and dialects, and his reading style, all added to the enjoyment of the listen
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Brave Men, Doing the Impossible
Any additional comments?
Simply a stunning book, mace into a stunning listening experience
2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- david
- 20-01-15
A fantastic account.
A fascinating account of the turning point of the Second World War. Gripping and shocking in equal measure. Highly recommended.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 20-07-15
SEVENTY YEARS ON WE CAN SEE MORE CLEARLY
What made the experience of listening to Overlord the most enjoyable?
The author's complete mastery of his material, and his ability seamlessly to blend accounts of grand strategy, tactics, the hundreds of small scale engagements that go to make up a battle like this, with personal anecdotage from both sides. It is impossible for a book or a film to recreate the experience of war, but this one comes as near to doing it as anything else I have read.
What did you like best about this story?
What I relished most about the story was the unflinching way it faced unpleasant facts: incompetent commanders, cowardly officers, men being urged into battle at gunpoint, mistakes that cost lives and war crimes committed by soldiers driven past normal rationalism by the hideousness of war. As George Orwell remarked, autobiography is only to be trusted if it reveals something disgraceful: the same is true of history, and on this showing this is a thoroughly truthful book.
Have you listened to any of Barnaby Edwards’s other performances? How does this one compare?
Not that I am aware: but the power of Hastings's writing was very well served by this narrator. His level, well modulated and well proportioned reading added greatly to the book's impact. The truly dreadful thing about war is that it eventually makes the horrific seem everyday, and Mr Edwards's reading helped to emphasise that fact.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, for the simple reason that to do so would have been emotionally overwhelming. I listened to the account of the battle the way it was fought, day by day.
Any additional comments?
Everything I know about Max Hastings suggests that if I met him I would find him a very difficult man indeed to like. Nonetheless, in his own field as a military historian, there are very few to touch him.
7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Seagull
- 05-09-18
Absorbing - mostly!
This was bought for my partner, who is always interested in war books. However, I took the chance to listen myself and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's certainly a gripping (and true) story of wartime subterfuge, and even though the outcome is well known, it still absorbed my attention. My only criticism is that it is sometimes a little too thorough. The sheer amount of background detail (although impressive) can sometimes feel overwhelming and occasionally confusing. But overall, a very interesting book which is well read by Barnaby Edwards.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bella
- 01-08-17
Not For Beginners
What did you like most about Overlord?
It was very informative and in depth with regards to D-Day and Overlord.
What does Barnaby Edwards bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
The ability to listen while driving the car. Reading a book while driving is frowned upon in the UK. Narration was very good.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, it was too heavy for one sitting, plus I needed to research some of the things that were talked about and work out the acronyms that were mentioned, before proceeding.
Any additional comments?
I felt I learned a lot but there seemed to be quite a high degree of assumed knowledge of military acronyms, types of weapons, tank types and generally in depth knowledge of WWII. In hindsight I think a book that details D-Day at a higher level would have been a good pre-read before embarking on this one.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Robert Yuan
- 19-12-14
Only for knowledgable listener
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I am a big fan of Max Hastings and consider myself very knowledgeable regarding the events of World War II. In retrospect, I must confess that I was not as prepared going into this book as I should have been -- if properly forewarned. Mr Hastings assumes that listener/reader is familiar with the Normandy Campaign. In a very detailed history, he tangentially refers to the development of the campaign only in order to ground his descriptions and analysis of leaders, decisions, and vignettes.
Did Overlord inspire you to do anything?
Get a fundamental understanding of the Normandy Campaign before revisiting this book.
Any additional comments?
Enjoyable for the listener/reader who is already familiar with the campaign and seeks details.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ted
- 17-09-17
Crude caricatures of American voices
No one writes more riveting military history than Max Hastings. His prose manages to be both authoritative and entertaining, and I'm so addicted to it that I've bought literally everything available of his, sometimes in book form, sometimes in audiobook, often both.
But this particular audiobook has been nearly ruined for me by the narrator's tendency, in the middle of ordinary third-person text, to switch into a crude caricature of what he apparently believes is an American accent whenever he comes to a quote by an American. (Oddly enough, German voices are not caricatured -- quite the opposite, in fact. Wehrmacht officers come off sounding not terribly different from educated Brits.)
I did a mental double-take the first time the book quoted Gen. Omar Bradley. Suddenly the narrator abandoned his cultured Briish tones and lapsed into a jarring exaggeration of the sort of Southern drawl usually associated with cartoonish Mississippi sheriffs on TV. (Bradley, incidentally, was a Midwesterner, a native of Missouri; he sounded nothing like this.) The narrator takes similar liberties with the other Americans quoted -- and this being D-Day, there are a lot of them.
Why do some otherwise intelligent audiobook narrators insist on treating a quotation in the text as the opportunity to show off a funny accent? The result, in this case, is downright grating.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Deann
- 13-07-15
Good detailed history, but annoying accents
Did Barnaby Edwards do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
Barnaby Edwards did differentiate all the characters, but I found his exaggerated American accents very annoying and found that distracting.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- lrjanzen
- 17-11-14
Good read about the Normandy campaign
Would you listen to Overlord again? Why?
yes. Excellent narrator and a pretty good history.
Any additional comments?
The usual complaint with Audible's history books. No supporting pdf file with the maps and images.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- James F. Ireland
- 02-05-15
Narration
Is there anything you would change about this book?
Yes
Would you recommend Overlord to your friends? Why or why not?
Not Sure
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Very Much
Could you see Overlord being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
No
Any additional comments?
With no prejudice; not a fan of Old English for reading. Difficult (for me) to apply emotion to the characters in story.
4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Miles
- 26-08-20
A Vivid Image of War
An excellent job relaying a vivid picture of war from the perspective of so many different people who experienced it first hand. Disappointing narration. The attempt of mimicking American accents was poorly done. I think it would be better to simply read the words and let the audience translate into a respective accents.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kaui
- 27-07-20
What a book!!
If there is one book you should read on WWII, this one might be IT - especially for non-academians. Max Hastings applies his rare talent of distilling complex military operations to the heart of the matter to one of the most complex military operations in our country's history: the coordination with the U.K and the rest of the Allies for a massive attack on Hitler's Occupied France. The logistics and politics of this endeavor were staggering, yet Mr. Hastings conveys the mammoth undertaking in 400ish pages. There are fiction novels at 600-800 pages which don't convey as much.
The book is not for everyone - it's non fiction, and an historical account of how the U.S. organized itself, got massive troops over to the UK, trained them in the British countryside, and then, ultimately, stormed the beaches of France in the infamous D-Day assault on June 6, 1944. The implications of the Allies defeating the Axis are long and dark. The story of how such stark alternative timelines were avoided is one of commitment, creativity, cooperation and, ultimately, passion. The heroes of the war range from the high-level generals to the in-the trenches brave soldiers who put their lives on the line for democracy. I wept at times when I read this book. For anyone who is interested in history, military history, and/or WWII, this is one of the best books on D-Day around (for laymen LOL).
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 15-08-19
Solid work by Hastings
Another wonderful fact driven book by Mr Hastings, but the narration at times hurt the overall story. The over reach to sound American was offensive to the story and the men it was suppose to represent. My advice if you feel the need to have an American voice then reach out and get an American to do it!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- AGFF
- 23-12-18
Well done in-depth analysis.
Different then most everything I’ve read up to this point. Really helps depth of understanding.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- WTJIII
- 02-08-15
Great book and performance.
I think the reading performance was fine. I saw some complaints about his American accents. While certainly more from the Graham Chapman school and not the Hugh Laurie one, his accents served the purpose well. His British accent was pretty good too.
2 people found this helpful