|
(Buy in the UK)
(Buy in the US)
|
At
9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden’s air-raid
sirens sounded as they had done many times during the Second
World War. But this time was different. By the next morning,
2,600 tons of high explosives and incendiary devices had been
dropped on the unprotected city.
At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the terrifying firestorm
and thirteen square miles of the city’s historic centre,
including incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art,
lay in ruins. In this portrait of the city, its people, and
its still-controversial destruction, Frederick Taylor has drawn
on archives and sources only accessible since the fall of the
East German regime, and talked to Allied aircrew and survivors,
from members of the German armed services and refugees fleeing
the Russian advance to ordinary citizens of Dresden. |
| ____________________________________________________________________
“This scholarly, objective, sane and well-written book
… a tremendously powerful work, profoundly moving in
the accounts of the ordinary German families who met their
deaths that dreadful night.”
-- Evening Standard (London)
“Taylor’s carefully researched book, based on
documents and interviews, tries to provide a more accurate
account of why the Dresden raid happened and what really took
place that night. He does not excuse, but he disposes of some
enduring myths … This might have been one of those pert,
self-important histories which boast that they are debunking
all previous judgments. It is anything but that. As Taylor
dismantles more myths, he becomes increasingly appalled by
the truth which remains. This is a rigorous book, written
by a man who does not deny his own feelings.”
-- The Observer
“In narrative power and persuasion, he has paralleled
in Dresden what Anthony Beevor achieved in Stalingrad.”
-- Independent on Sunday
“An absolutely magnificent work both of scholarship
and narration … it gives us enough background, description,
anecdote and information to help guide our imaginations towards
forming a picture of just how horrific the raid and its aftermath
must have been … Taylor succeeds in explaining the significance
of Allied aerial bombing not just to the war effort but to
victory: it is a recognition that is long overdue.”
-- The Literary Review
“He has written a narrative that powers along without
descending into hyperbole … impeccably documented while
avoiding the sterile jargon of so much military history …
In laying to rest the legends, Taylor’s authoritative
and moving account provides a … fitting memorial.”
-- The Independent
”Taylor weaves a chilling narrative from eyewitness
accounts and...documentary research ... His account of the
air operation ... is quite superb.”
--
Allan Mallison , The Times
“Frederick Taylor’s magnificent, all-encompassing
study of the action, its origins and its aftermath is surely
as close as the English language will get to a definitive,
balanced examination of the subject … Taylor gives us
a beautifully worked version of every part of the Dresden
story.”
-- The Scotsman
“This is a very good book indeed … Perhaps with
this fine, highly readable and scholarly work, we can finally
review the terrible destruction of Dresden with renewed objectivity.”
-- The Daily Telegraph
“Carefully researched and wonderfully written.”
-- Scotland on Sunday
“The
enigmatic past and the patient muse of history are brilliantly
served … by this blockbuster of a book. It is a masterpiece
of scholarship and even-handed reporting not unlike John Hersey’s
Hiroshima … Dresden is a war classic, one that combs
the ashes to bring the complicated past to shuddering true
life at last.”
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"Taylor's chronicle...makes for compelling reading, owing
both to his chilling depiction of that surreal and horrible
night and to the obvious moral seriousness he uses to grapple
with the ambiguities at the heart of his account.... Drawing
on the sophisticated assessments of a generation of scholars,
[Taylor]...puts the assault in its proper context to reveal
the inherent moral tangle of total war."
-- Atlantic Monthly
“One of the best non-fiction books I've ever encountered
... a path breaking work of scholarship and feeling. It reads
like a dark thriller. It IS a dark thriller.”
-- KZYX&Z-FM Public Radio, California
"Passionately written and deeply affecting, DRESDEN is
a bracing rebuke to the myths and propaganda that have painted
over the memory of this tragedy.”
-- People Magazine
"For a look into the eye of a whirlwind, read this book.
Taylor's work is highly recommended as a complete, learned
and balanced analysis of the Dresden raid."
-- Edmonton Journal (Canada)
NEWSFLASH:
On 1 October 2008 the Commission of Historians appointed by
the City of Dresden to report on the true numbers of dead
resulting from the Air Raid on Dresden filed its provisional
report after four years of research and deliberations For
an account of this and Frederick Taylor's comments in his
article in Spiegel International see http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,581992,00.html
____________________________________________________________________
|
DRESDEN
was published in Great Britain in February 2004 (hardcover)
and February 2005 in paperback and is available from bookshops,
Bloomsbury
publishers and amazon.co.uk.
It was published in the USA by HarperCollins and is available
there from book stores and from amazon.com.
DRESDEN has so far been translated into
German,
Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Hebrew, Dutch, Portuguese
(Brazil), and Romanian.
|
