Belknap Press (Harvard Univ. Press), 2000, $35, ISBN 0-674-00163-X, 656 pgs.

Quite simply, this is the best single-volume history ever written about WWII. It offers just enough detail at the lower levels for anecdotal effect while maintaining a balanced and thoughtful strategic insight. It's a well-written book too, maintaining your interest with clear and comprehensible prose.

The authors continually place events in a larger geo-political context, and deliver the "why" behind decisions as well as consequences of various actions. As campaigns unfold, the analysis rolls forward as well, commenting on successes and failures, leadership foibles and fortes, and what-might-have-beens.

If you're looking for a definitive one-volume WWII history, A War to be Won is it.