“Two books in English stand out from the vast literature of the Second World War. Chester Wilmot’s The Struggle for Europe, published in 1952, and David Irving‘s Hitler’s War, which appeared three years ago.

“They do so because, from exactly opposing angles of vision, each tackles the strategy of the whole war and makes impressive if doctrinaire sense of it.

“The second book has not yet worked its way into our general understanding of the conþict, though it undoubtedly will do so when controversy over its sensationalist elements is exhausted.”

From the review of another book in The Times Literary Supplement, April 24, 1980.

[Keegan is seen in our picture receiving his knighthood on May 3, 2000]