World War II

As you would expect from DK, this is not so much a history of the Second World War, as an imaginative and knowledgeable tour around some of the artefacts associated with the conflict. There is a variety of these; from a German ration card and a Vichy lapel badge to an Enigma machine and a U.S. Army Jeep. The emphasis falls necessarily on uniforms, insignia and weaponry, but there are also double page spreads for, among others, women at work, wartime childhood, and life in prisoner of war camps. This approach is excellent for providing the look and feel of the time. Much of the unobtrusive skill in producing this kind of book comes in the selection, arrangement and captioning of the artefacts, so that they are not only intrinsically interesting but come together to tell a story. And Adams and the design team are to be congratulated on how well they have done this. For example, the only double page spread to be arranged as a vertical rather than a horizontal frame is the one about the atomic bomb, a design decision that emphasises, as the mushroom cloud rises over two pages, the appearance of a terrible new dimension in warfare.