Dear, ICB & Foot, MCD. Oxford Companion to the Second World War. Oxford University Press. 1,368 pages. $49.95 An encyclopedia, or a companion or almanac should be clear, concise, factual and comprehensive. The Oxford Companion to the Second World War fills that bill nicely. Lavishly supplemented with an ample arrray of maps and illustrations, its longish essays on the broader aspects of the war backed by analytical descriptions it will undoubtedly take it place as an indispensable reference book for those interested in World War II. Weinberg, Gerhard. A World At Arms. Oxford University Press. 1,178 pages $34.95. Weinberg offers a massive survey of the war as seen as a whole, running right through from the German onslaught of Poland to the bombing of Nagasaki. The book provides a clear account of strategy, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of Germany, its few allies and its overwhelmingly numerous allies. Neillands, Robin. The Conquest of the Reich. New York University Press. 352 pages. $24.95 This collection of front line sailors', soldiers' and airmen's descriptions of what battle felt like in the last four months of the European describes the war from the bottom of the trenches. The stories are cross-cut with accounts from German civilians of what it felt like to be bombed and conquered. It is easy to forget after fifty years how flat all the main cities of Germany were bombed, just as it is hard to remember the impact on German women of the two words of German most Soviet soldiers acquired -- Frau, komm -- and what usually followed. Reynolds, David. Rich Relations. Random House. 555 pages. $30. To the British the Americans who poured onto to the islands starting in 1942 had four problems -- they were "overpaid, overfed, over sexed and over here." Subtitled "the American occupation of Britain 1942-1945" Reynolds' work explores the impact on an already crowded island of over 1.5 million young men (and a few thousand young women) on their way to continental Europe to have done with Nazism. Written with a light touch, the book gets to the bottom of the social problems that the occupation raised. Discriminating between apparent difficulties and real ones, Reynolds shows that most British belief in the sexual and social triumphs of the visiting GIs was myth. He also demonstrates that the American experience of Britain's refusal to recognize a color bar had a liberating impact on America's black soldiers and airmen and decisive impact on post-war America. Back to Cry Havoc #11 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com