Max Hastings

Taking its title from Montgomery’s ‘Operation Plunder’ - the 23 March 1945 crossing of the Rhine – Max Hastings’ latest study of the Second World War focuses on the last weeks of World War II in Western Europe portraying extraordinary scenes of heroism, horror, melodrama and pathos.

In Plunder, Hastings again offers his signature narrative of conflict, blending personal experiences into the ‘big picture’, highlighting deeds and personalities that will be unfamiliar to many, mingling accounts of the battles with stories of people – warlords, soldiers, slave labourers, prisoners, fugitives, victims – who played many and various roles in the last act of history’s most terrible war.

‘There are few things in life more dependable than a war story told by Hastings… He’s a master of drama, a writer intimately familiar with the mind of the soldier’ Daily Telegraph