No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II - Hardcover

Shaara, Jeff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345497929 ISBN 13: 9780345497925

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2009

Synopsis

No Less Than Victory is the crowning achievement in master storyteller Jeff Shaara’s soaring World War II trilogy, revealing the European war’s unforgettable and harrowing final act.

After the success of the Normandy invasion, the Allied commanders are buoyantly confident that the war in Europe will be over in a matter of weeks, that Hitler and his battered army have no other option than surrender. But despite the advice of his best military minds, Hitler will hear no talk of defeat. In mid-December 1944, the Germans launch a desperate and ruthless counteroffensive in the Ardennes forest, utterly surprising the unprepared Americans who stand in their way. Through the frigid snows of the mountainous terrain, German tanks and infantry struggle to realize Hitler’s goal: divide the Allied armies and capture the vital port at Antwerp. The attack succeeds in opening up a wide gap in the American lines, and for days chaos reigns in the Allied command. Thus begins the Battle of the Bulge, the last gasp by Hitler’s forces that becomes a horrific slugging match, some of the most brutal fighting of the war. As American commanders respond to the stunning challenge, the German spear is finally blunted.

Though some in the Nazi inner circle continue the fight to secure Germany’s postwar future, the Führer makes it clear that he is fighting to the end. He will spare nothing–not even German lives–to preserve his twisted vision of a “Thousand Year Reich.” But in May 1945, the German army collapses, and with Russian troops closing in, Hitler commits suicide. As the Americans sweep through the German countryside, they unexpectedly encounter the worst of Hitler’s crimes, the concentration camps, and young GIs find themselves absorbing firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust.

Presenting his riveting account through the eyes of Eisenhower and Patton and the young GIs who struggle face-to-face with their enemy, and through the eyes of Germany’s old soldier, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Hitler’s golden boy, Albert Speer, Jeff Shaara carries the reader on a journey that defines the spirit of the soldier and the horror of a madman’s dreams. No Less Than Victory further solidifies Shaara’s reputation as this era’s most accomplished author of historical military fiction.

About this title

Review:

Jeff Shaara on No Less Than Victory

In all the stories I’ve written, from the American Revolution, up through World War Two, one of the most gratifying comments I have received from readers has been, "I didn’t know that." Whether writing about Benjamin Franklin or The Red Baron, Robert E. Lee or Black Jack Pershing, my favorite moments have come when a discovery is made, when I can offer the reader some tidbit or episode of history that is an entertaining surprise.

By any pure definition, I am not a historian. My job is not to bathe you with the raw facts and figures, all those things many of us dread when opening the high school history text book. Instead, my goal is to tell you a historically accurate story through the eyes of those special characters, by digging deeply into their memoirs and diaries, letters and the accounts of those who stood beside them. The most satisfying part of that to me is that I do not have to "fudge" history. Unlike Hollywood, where too often filmmakers seem not to trust that an honest historical tale can be sufficiently entertaining, I have been surprised by how the characters themselves, so many of them familiar names, can tell us a true story that not only entertains but reveals something of our past. My job is to be the storyteller, to bring these characters out of their world and into ours. History is not about numbers, but about us.

When I began to tackle the subject of the Second World War, I was concerned that I would be unable to find a story to tell that you did not already know. This is one subject that even Hollywood has (sometimes) treated with an honest hand, magnificent stories that may or may not be genuine history, but at least are honest in their ambitions. What can I add to that? What can I tell you about George Patton or D-Day or the Holocaust that you don’t already know? The answer to that was a surprise to me, and it is my fervent hope that in the trilogy I’ve just completed, it is a surprise to you.

Heroes come in strange packages, and often, the decent and the honorable emerge in places we don’t expect to find them. Throughout my research on World War Two, I was caught off guard many times by the strength of character that came not just from the familiar names, the leaders, but the unfamiliar: the men of the Airborne and the tanks and the men who carried the rifle. I was surprised as well by the enemy, in this case, the Germans. Not every man who obeyed Hitler was simply a goose-stepping monster, and so, some of them, Rommel and Kesselring and von Rundstedt and Speer... add to these stories in ways I did not expect.

Ultimately, the stories I write must entertain, which, when writing about war, can seem terribly inappropriate. World War Two gave us more horror than most of us can possibly absorb. But we must not forget that many did absorb it. Many carry those stories still, often unspoken, unrevealed, those aging GIs whose memories have always been stirred by the sights and smells and the horrific loss. And throughout the horror there are different memories, the uplifting, the humorous, and alongside the tears and the screams there is laughter. It is after all, how the veteran survives.

Their numbers are fewer every day, and as they leave us, many will carry the stories with them. Often, as we watched them grow older, we dared not ask for the tales, cautioned by a parent perhaps, warned against prying or digging too deeply into the old veteran’s silent horror. Even in the name of research, it is not my place to probe where I am not invited. But the history is there for us to explore, the events real, the people true to life, the heroism and the horror a part of their legacy, a legacy we must not forget. It’s the least we can do. --Jeff Shaara

(Photo © Adrian Kinloch)

About the Author:

Jeff Shaara is the New York Times bestselling author of A Chain of Thunder, A Blaze of Glory, The Final Storm, No Less Than Victory, The Steel Wave, The Rising Tide, To the Last Man, The Glorious Cause, Rise to Rebellion, and Gone for Soldiers, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure—two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with his father’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, The Killer Angels. Shaara was born into a family of Italian immigrants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and graduated from Florida State University. He lives in Gettysburg.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0345497929
• ISBN 13: 9780345497925
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480