Stalingrad

Antony Beevor's narrative history of the Battle of Stalingrad starts with Operation Barbarossa, Germany's June 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, before concentrating on the fight for the city from the first German assault in August 1942 to the Soviet encirclement and the German surrender in February 1943. Beevor tells the story largely from the ground, through soldiers on both sides and civilians caught in the fighting, and details war crimes committed by each army. His research drew on interviews with survivors, German and Soviet archives, prisoner interrogations, reports on desertions and executions, and private letters and diaries. It won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, along with the Wolfson History Prize.

Richard Branson chose it for his own list of the 65 books he would read in a lifetime.