Max Hastings' "Plunder: The Last of the War in Europe, 1945" Draws Praise From Marginal Revolution
Key Takeaways
- •Marginal Revolution published a positive notice on October 14, 2026, recommending Max Hastings's book Plunder: The Last of the War in Europe, 1945.
- •The book examines the final phase of the Second World War in Europe, which ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945.
- •The blog, long associated with George Mason University economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, is known for reading recommendations that reach an audience well beyond academic economics.
- •Hastings, a British historian and former journalist who edited The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard, previously authored Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945 and All Hell Let Loose: The World at War, 1939–1945.
- •The post highlights a comparison of wartime military executions, noting that the British executed forty of their own soldiers, the French 103, the Americans 146, the Japanese 22,253, and the Russians at least 150,000, possibly as many as 300,000.
The economics blog Marginal Revolution published a positive notice on October 14, 2026, on Plunder: The Last of the War in Europe, 1945, a book by historian Max Hastings that examines the final phase of the Second World War in Europe, which ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945. Long associated with economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University, the site is known for its regular reading recommendations, which put history titles in front of a readership well beyond academic economics.
Hastings, a British historian and former journalist who has written extensively on the conflict — and who edited The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard earlier in his career — receives high praise in the post, which calls the work "an excellent book" and reports having "benefited from every page." His previous books include Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945, which covered the war's final year in the same theater, and All Hell Let Loose: The World at War, 1939–1945.
One recurring theme, the post notes, is "how hard the Germans fought on the way down, and how unusual that behavior was."
Among the passages highlighted is a comparison of how the major powers of the era handled capital sentences within their own armed forces:
In World War I, 150 German soldiers were sentenced to death for serious crimes, of which a mere forty-eight were executed. In World War II, thousand death sentences were decreed by military courts, of which two-thirds were carried out, in addition to many more that took place without any judicial proceeding. By contrast the British executed forty men, the French 103, the Americans 146, almost all the condemned Allied soldiers having committed capital crimes as defined in civil law, rather than being sentenced for dereliction of military duty. Meanwhile the Japanese executed 22,253 of their own men, and the Russians at least 150,000, possibly as many as 300,000.
Concluding the notice, the blog's author writes: "As I like to say, you can never read too many books about WWII."
Plunder: The Last of the War in Europe, 1945 is listed on Amazon.
