STALIN'S WAR: FROM "THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD

This is the American narrative of World History, in which Britain and the USA heroically defeated the forces of fascist Germany and Japan. The rest of the world laughs at this narrative. In fact, the eastern front was the central arena of WWII. It involved more land combat than all other theaters of the war put together and resulted in thirty million deaths. It was where three- quarters of all German forces fought and where Germany incurred 70 percent of its casualties. The European front was in many ways a sideshow, but in the West it was treated as the main show. Stephen Ambrose “lavishes [attention] on the US-British invasion of Sicily, which drove 60,000 Germans from the island, but completely ignores Kursk - the largest battle in history, in which at least 1.5 million Soviets and Germans fought, and which occurred at exactly the same time. The struggle against Nazi Germany was primarily, as the great military historian John Erickson called it, "Stalin's War.