From Max Hastings comes a collection of talks and lectures exploring the wars of the 20th century with the verve, insight and originality that has made him a number one bestselling historian.

What is war like to live through, for civilian victims, especially women, as well as soldiers, sailors and fliers? Hastings has been a life-long student of warfare, a ‘chronicler of conflict’, working first as a foreign correspondent on battlefields, then as a prolific prize-winning historian of the 20th century’s greatest struggles. He has now been studying warfare for over fifty years, published thirty books, and given hundreds of talks and lectures. Here are thirteen of the best.

Addressing questions of truth versus myth and revisiting many last-generation narratives, Hastings leads us through the most important conflicts in recent times. Listen as he explores D-Day, the Dambusters raid, Churchill’s character and achievement as war leader, Vietnam, and—in his most recent book, published in 2022, the Cuban missile crisis—13 days when we came closest to annihilation and which stands as a mirror to the grave threats the world faces today.