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Home / Periods / World War II

War

World War II

1939–1945 CE

World War II began in Europe in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland, though war in Asia had already been under way. The Axis powers fought the Allies across Europe, North Africa, the Atlantic, Asia and the Pacific. The conflict involved blitzkrieg, strategic bombing, occupation, genocide, amphibious invasion, intelligence work and nuclear weapons.

Its significance is global and structural: empires weakened, borders shifted, civilian populations became central targets and the United States and Soviet Union emerged as superpowers. The war also generated immense personal narratives of displacement, resistance, captivity and survival. It is one of the strongest anchor categories for both literary historical fiction and commercial series fiction.

World War II fiction has a very large reading audience, from Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See and Kate Atkinson's Life After Life to Robert Harris, Alan Furst, Herman Wouk, Kristin Hannah and Ken Follett. Series and thrillers often use occupied Europe, intelligence work, resistance networks, codebreaking, naval war and family survival as their core material. The wider war connected occupied Europe, resistance networks, codebreaking, naval conflict, genocide, home-front mobilisation and military campaigns across several theatres.

Related people for World War II

Adolf Hitler1889–1945 Airey Neave1916–1979 Alan Turing1912–1954 Alexander Scotland1882–1965 Anthony Blunt1907–1983 Archibald Clark Kerr1882–1951 Barnes Wallis1887–1979 Benito Mussolini1883–1945 Bernard Montgomery1887–1976 Bertram Home Ramsay1883–1945 Calouste Gulbenkian1869–1955 Charles B. McVay III1898–1968 Charles de Gaulle1890–1970 Charlie Erswell1923–2021 Christine Granville1908–1952 Christopher Wood1901–1930 Colin Anson1922–2016 Colin Gubbins1896–1976 David Lloyd George1863–1945 Donald Maclean1913–1983 Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969 Edward VII1841–1910 Edward VIII1894–1972 Eleanor Roosevelt1884–1962 Elizabeth II1926–2022 Ernest Hemingway1899–1961 Erwin Rommel1891–1944 Eva Braun1912–1945 Francis Haskell1928–2000 Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945 Fritz-Julius Lemp1913–1941 George VI1895–1952 Georgy Zhukov1896–1974 Guy Burgess1911–1963 Guy Gibson1918–1944 Gyles Mackrell1888–1959 Haakon VII of Norway1872–1957 Haile Selassie1892–1975 Harry S. Truman1884–1972 Heinrich Himmler1900–1945 Heinrich Müller1900–1945 Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener1850–1916 Hermann Göring1893–1946 Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding1882–1970 Ian Fleming1908–1964 J. Robert Oppenheimer1904–1967 Jean Moulin1899–1943 Jeremy Wolfenden1934–1965 John Cairncross1913–1995 John F. Kennedy1917–1963 John Frost1912–1993 Jomo Kenyatta1893–1978 Joseph Chamberlain1836–1914 Joseph Goebbels1897–1945 Joseph McCarthy1908–1957 Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.1888–1969 Joseph Stalin1878–1953 Joseph Stilwell1883–1946 Karl Brandt1904–1948 Karl Dönitz1891–1980 Kim Philby1912–1988 Klaus Barbie1913–1991 Larissa Salmina-Haskell1931–2024 Laura Knight1877–1970 Lavrentiy Beria1899–1953 Leslie Groves1896–1970 Lucky Luciano1897–1962 Luisa Casati1881–1957 Lyudmila Pavlichenko1916–1974 Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948 Mao Zedong1893–1976 Margaret Thatcher1925–2013 Mary Lindell1895–1987 Mary Soames1922–2014 Menelik II1844–1913 Meyer Lansky1902–1983 Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022 Mochitsura Hashimoto1909–2000 Mohammad Hatta1902–1980 Neville Chamberlain1869–1940 Nikita Khrushchev1894–1971 Orde Wingate1903–1944 Otto von Bismarck1815–1898 Pablo Picasso1881–1973 Paul Kruger1825–1904 Prince George, Duke of Kent1902–1942 Prince Philipp of Hesse1896–1980 Reginald Victor Jones1911–1997 Reinhard Heydrich1904–1942 Richard Hillary1919–1943 Sefton Delmer1904–1979 Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat1911–1995 Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet1892–1984 Sir Harry Oakes1874–1943 Subhas Chandra Bose1897–1945 Sukarno1901–1970 Thomas Joseph Kendrick1881–1972 Vera Atkins1908–2000 Victor de Laveleye1894–1945 Victoria1819–1901 Virginia Woolf1882–1941 Vladimir Lenin1870–1924 W. Averell Harriman1891–1986 Wallis Simpson1896–1986 Wernher von Braun1912–1977 Wilhelm II1859–1941 William E. Fairbairn1885–1960 William Randolph Hearst1863–1951 William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim1891–1970 Willy Field1921 Winston Churchill1874–1965

Series

Series about World War II (8 series)

The Warsaw Quartet in Order

by Douglas Jackson 4 books 4.5(3,009)

The Warsaw Quartet follows Jan Kalisz, a former senior Polish investigator forced to work for the German criminal police after the occupation of Warsaw. Secretly serving the Polish resistance, Kalisz investigates murders that the occupying authorities value according to the nationality and usefulness of the victims, while concealing…

Rifleman in Order

by Griff Hosker 2 books 4.5(1,859)

Rifleman follows John Sharratt from wartime loss and conscription into the British Army during the Second World War. The sequence moves from the Blitz and training into the North African desert, where ordinary infantry experience the pressure of modern war, retreat, endurance and battle against Rommel’s forces.

Combined Operations in Order

by Griff Hosker 12 books 4.4(18,950)

Combined Operations follows Tom Harsker and a commando unit through the Second World War and into Korea. The series begins with Britain under pressure in 1940 and moves through raids, occupied Europe, Dieppe, Sicily, D-Day, the Scheldt and the final advance into Germany before shifting to the Korean…

Ww2 Occupation Series in Order

by Deborah Swift 3 books 4.4(14,242)

The WW2 Occupation novels examine how war reaches civilians far from the conventional front line. The Occupation is set in German-occupied Jersey and follows a divided household pulled into resistance. The Lifeline moves between occupied Norway and Shetland, linking the teachers’ resistance to the clandestine maritime routes of…

Ww2 Secret Agent in Order

by Deborah Swift 3 books 4.4(11,280)

The WW2 Secret Agent series follows Nancy Callaghan and code expert Tom Lockwood through the covert war against Nazi Germany. The Silk Code begins in 1943 with SOE communications and the Englandspiel disaster; The Shadow Network broadens the world to black propaganda and the Political Warfare Executive; Operation…

World War II in Order

by Jeff Shaara 4 books 4.3(40,573)

The World War II series traces the principal American campaigns from North Africa in 1942 to the end of the Pacific War in 1945. The Rising Tide covers North Africa and Sicily; The Steel Wave reconstructs D-Day and Normandy; No Less Than Victory follows the Battle of the…

Survivors of War in Order

by Deborah Swift 2 books 4.3(2,403)

Survivors of War follows Zofia and the people drawn into her life as the Second World War spreads across eastern Europe and Asia. Last Train to Freedom begins in Lithuania in 1940, where escape depends on Japanese transit visas and a dangerous journey across the Soviet Union. The…

Peter Lamb in Order

by Iain Gale 2 books 4.1(605)

The Peter Lamb novels follow a British officer and his small unit through two of the most disordered Allied campaigns of the early Second World War. The Black Jackals begins during the collapse of France in 1940, where retreat, civilian casualties and broken communications force Lamb to make…

Books

30 Best Novels About World War II

Non-Fiction

30 Best Non-Fiction Books About World War II

Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.