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Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders. By Gerhard L. Weinberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-85254-4. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxiv, 292. $28.00.
Gerhard Weinberg's Visions of Victory is constructed around a simple armature, yet it covers ground that has never been traversed so purposefully. Weinberg has chosen eight wartime leaders-Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Chiang Kai-Shek, Josef Stalin, Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt-as the subjects of this work. The structure of the book is straightforward and introductory, neatly framed around two questions: What were the hopes and aims of these leaders and what were their respective "visions of victory"?, and how did these concepts shape their wartime strategies?
This is not counterfactual history or a never-ending series of "what-ifs" but instead is a thorough analysis of the specific wartime goals of each leader. Hitler's vision was decidedly the most radical and grandiose. For Hitler, the new world order was one based on...