World War II: Up Close and Personal

By: Keith Huxen, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Professor Keith Huxen

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

World War II was one of the defining moments in modern history, a global conflagration that transformed the world through battles, shifting alliances, and horrors unlike anything in recorded history. The story is often told as a series of great campaigns by famous generals, dramatic turning points, and cataclysmic combat. But what about the millions of ordinary people - the citizens and soldiers whose names none of us know but whose impact rippled through every aspect of the war?

From the icy front lines of Soviet Russia to the bombing campaigns against Britain to the American submarines lurking beneath the choppy waters of the Pacific, step into the shoes of remarkable everyday men and women in World War II: Up Close and Personal. Your lecturer is Dr. Keith Huxen, a historian and project director at The Henry M. Jackson Foundation, which supports the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. In 24 engrossing lessons, Keith takes you into the story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things - bringing history to life through the flesh and blood of battles, the diplomatic skirmishes, or beleaguered civilians eking out their next meal.

From the Nazi’s propaganda machine to recruit German youth and the shocking Japanese invasion of China to the bloody Battle of the Bulge and the dropping of the atomic bombs, Keith traces the course of the war to give you a sense of its global scope. While he touches on the alliances and strategies and dynamic weapons of war, history is the story of people. Each lesson zooms in for a view through the eyes of soldiers, sailors, pilots, war correspondents, and citizens struggling to survive a war-torn world.

Meet witnesses to the Rape of Nanjing, see what it was like to drive a Panzer tank during a blitzkrieg, or to be a Black pilot in a segregated American Army. With its focus on the “felt life” of the war, this course is an absolute must-have for anyone interested in the story of our modern world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 The Great Courses (P)2021 The Teaching Company, LLC

A Masterful Assemblage

This lecture series is foremost a tremendous concept brilliantly executed by the resources brought together to present a gallery of vivid and compelling topics covering diverse aspects of the Second World War that range from the most private experiences of individuals to the massive campaigns of warfare. Throughout the separate chapters, one accumulates a body of shared perspectives from individual sufferings and heroics embedded in the vast sweep of the global conflict. Such stories enlarge the account of mere military combatants into a greater portrayal of the underlying humanity that felt the causes and consequences of the acts and events that befell them in ways both particular and universal. The means to gather so diverse and plentiful material into a graspable format is only possible from the remove of time through the lens of historical research. The lecturer has combed his selections from a broad array of extant resources and deftly arranged them into a masterful work of its own.

(A Note on Narration: The delivery of the 24 lectures is at times "uneven". Ordinary statements are occasionally fraught with exaggerated emphasis on syllables, words, and phrases that obliterate the natural rhythms of the prose diction, as though shouting out terms printed in ALL CAPS. Additionally, proper and place names are frequently pronounced in non-standard variations (those in French are generally mangled beyond recognition), though as irritating or unintelligible as they may be, it is not enough to sink the content of the lectures, individually or in their hugely potent whole.)

24 short stories about WW2 (some interesting)

This book bounces around a lot! That said, he offers some interesting perspectives. Worth the 11.5 hours

Enlightening, Chilling, Sobering

As one who was born at the end of WW II, heard many stories of the war and read many books on the topic, and watched many documentaries about it, this was up close and personal in a way not conveyed in the other works.

Superb content

I think that anyone interested in a true representation of what it was like to experience WWII will find this course to be very engrossing.

Interesting

I love WW2, not really my cup of tea, as I like personal memoirs and accounts of individual stories, I thought it would be like that because the name is “up close and personal” it was to an extent personal memoirs but sped up, didn’t really get too in-depth but its only around 10 hours, so it has to go by quickly

7/10

Fascinating, Captivating, Heartbreaking

I really enjoyed this Great Course. It offers a wide variety of eyewitness accounts from various people and places in WWII, from all sides. I learned a lot about what life was like for certain people, whether it be inhabitants of Stalingrad during the siege, Japanese Kamikaze pilots, military leaders, people in the French resistance, or ordinary citizens who got caught in the war. It offers a broad range of perspectives, as well as an overall narrative that helps understand it. The narration is engaging and kept my attention, though it had a few minor errors and obvious changes in tone/sound. Nothing that bothered me.

Good.

Very good. I liked how each segment was told from a different persons experience of the war.

Useful in Most Places, Exceptional in Others

Huxen's general approach is to focus on an individual or several in relation to each topic and his view is notably broad, if not exhaustive. Accounts or Stalingrad and Leningrad exist alongside personal stories of children evacuated during the Blitz. The Pacific and Asian theaters also receive coverage, with one of the most emotionally effecting chapters focusing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Huxen's tone is generally fair and even handed toward lower level combatants. In any work such as this, there are some missing elements, such as how non-westerners (beyond the Japanese) might have viewed and been effected by the war. But Dr. Huxen can't do everything, and succeeds well in introducing us to the most human aspects of the war from multiple perspectives, which is his main objective.

Outstanding Presentation

World War II was so large and lasted so long that it seems impossible to cover its complexity in a short course. However, this class is masterfully designed. By telling the history through personal stories, Huxen is able to cover much information and make each lesson create a vivid picture. I am grateful for each of these lessons.

One of the best great courses

I love Great Courses and consider myself a history buff. I learned so much about the WWII that four years of military science and a semester of history of WWII because of the personal stories told by the instructor. Highly recommended.