This oversize album of 665 photographs taken from the archives of Life magazine and other collections begins with the years 1919 to 1939, the two decades leading up to World War II. Editor Stolley then proceeds to chronicle the war, year by year through 1945, and ends with what he calls the wars aftermath, 1946 to 2001. These photographs document such momentous events as the civil war in Spain; Hitlers rise to power; Germanys conquest of France, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Belgium, Poland, and the Netherlands; the Nazis bombing of Britain; Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union and the siege of Stalingrad; the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific; the war in North Africa; the Holocaust; and the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. For World War II buffs, the book is a natural treasure. George Cohen