Rising '44 : the battle for Warsaw

In this brilliant narrative of the Warsaw Uprising, British historian Norman Davies offers a stirring account of one of the defining moments of the 20th century. 1944. WWII was tearing Europe apart. To the Wehrmacht, Nazi-occupied Warsaw represented the the last line of defence against the advancing Red Army.

So, when the Red Army reached the river Vistula, the people of Warsaw believed that liberation had come.

The city waited for salvation. Little did it know, it was in the eye of a storm. Instead of liberating, the Soviets remained where they were, allowing the Wehrmacht time to regroup and Hitler to order that the city of Warsaw be razed to the ground.

For 63 days the Resistance fought on in the cellars and the sewers.

Defenceless citizens were slaughtered in their tens of thousands.

One by one the city's monuments were reduced to rubble, watched by Soviet troops on the other bank of the river. Vividly and authoritatively told by one of our greatest historians, Rising '44 is the poignant narrative of Warsaw's 63 days.