Len Deighton's two volumes, which date back to the 1970s, deal with Hitler's early campaigns and the Battle of Britain respectively. They are direct, non specialist accounts which stand up well enough to re reading. Overy's broader approach is essentially analytical, and he casts a cold eye on Hitler's generalship, giving him credit for intense will power and drive, but pointing out that "his staff found him profoundly ignorant of the basic principles of command and of the art of war". Strangely, Overy's bibliography makes no mention of the writings of J.F.C. Fuller. The fourth book is a recreation of the BEF's ordeal in 1914, from Mons to the Marne, and uses both old eyewitness accounts and contemporary testimony, backed by the author's own recent tour of the routes and the battlefields. Some of the photographs are particularly poignant including one of British infantrymen resting in a sun baked square at Mons on August 23rd, 1914, which for many of them proved to be the second last day in their lives.