Recasting World War II as the logical continuation of decades of imperial growth and territorial ambition, this weighty new exploration of the conflict is expansive in its geographical and chronological scope. Yet it never loses sight of the very human cost of that ambition, from the troops on the front line to the civilians caught up in a struggle for international power. Clocking in at more than a thousand pages, this is a weighty, important take from a leading author in the field.