This analytical history offers a reinterpretation of the protagonists and events of World War 11. Overy uses the argument that the Allies turned out to be better at fighting, and benefitted more from total war than any of their totalitarian adversaries, or their ally, Stalin's Russia. Presenting more than a mere history of the war, Overy goes behind the main events to explain the deeper causes of the conflict, and takes an iconoclastic view of the causes of the Allies' victory, pointing out that an Allied victory was very far from being ordained. He explains the cultural, technical, military and psychological reasons for Western dominance of the post-war world, while showing how close-run the race really was. Richard Overy has also written The Road to War, The Air War and Goering: The Iron Man.