Richard Overy

Bio: Richard Overy is an academic researcher from King's College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: World War II & Nazism. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 50 publications receiving 1388 citations.

Why the Allies Won

Abstract: The Allied victory in 1945 - though comprehensive - was far from inevitable. By 1942 almost the entire resources of continental Europe were in German hands and Japan had wiped out the western colonial presence in Asia. Democracy appeared to have had its day. In this remarkable study, Richard Overy provides a reinterpretation of the war through an account of the decisive military campaigns that created the astonishing revival in Allied fortunes. He also explores the deeper factors that determined success and failure: industrial stength, fighting ability, the skills of leaders and the moral contrasts between the two sides. Today the modern world is once more in the throes of painful transformation. It is essential to establish why and how the last great war was won. Richard Overy casts a brilliant light on the most important turning-point of the modern age.

The air war, 1939-1945

Abstract: Originally published in 1980 and still the best one-volume aerial history of World War II, Richard Overy's classic work remains profound and highly origi-nal. Far from just an account of the various air battles, Professor Overy treats the air war as a complex and fascinating historical web, woven out of grand strategy, economic mobilization, the recruitment of science, and the nature of leadership and training. Analyzing the achievements and failures of the aerial component of the war, he places it in perspective by explaining the role aviation played in the overall conflict. He points out that while the Axis powers tended to limit their use of air power to one major role, such as support of ground forces, the Allies exploited all aspects of aerial doctrine: air defense, strategic bombardment, air-naval cooperation, and ground support. He also demonstrates how aircraft ensured that the Second World War became a people's war and how success in the air war was, in a very real sense, a test of a nation's modernity. The air war was won and lost not only in the skies but also in the factories and the research institutes. Finally, the author dispels many popular myths and in particular reveals that although air power in the form of strategic bombing by itself did not deter-mine the war's final outcome, its use dramatically illustrated the complexities of managing modern war. Richard Overy's The Air War thus deepens our under-standing not only of World War II but of military history in general.

The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia

Abstract: If the past century will be remembered for its tragic pairing of civilized achievement and organized destruction, at the heart of darkness may be found Hitler, Stalin, and the systems of domination they forged. Their lethal regimes murdered millions and fought a massive, deadly war. Yet their dictatorships took shape within formal constitutional structures and drew the support of the German and Russian people. In the first major historical work to analyze the two dictatorships together in depth, Richard Overy gives us an absorbing study of Hitler and Stalin, ranging from their private and public selves, their ascents to power and consolidation of absolute rule, to their waging of massive war and creation of far-flung empires of camps and prisons. The Nazi extermination camps and the vast Soviet Gulag represent the two dictatorships in their most inhuman form. Overy shows us the human and historical roots of these evils.

The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars

Abstract: British intellectual life between the wars stood at the heart of modernity. The combination of a liberal, uncensored society and a large educated audience for new ideas made Britain a laboratory for novel ways to understand the world. "The Morbid Age" opens a window onto this creative but anxious era, the golden age of the public intellectual and scientist: Arnold Toynbee, Aldous and Julian Huxley, H. G. Wells, Marie Stopes and a host of others. Yet, as Richard Overy argues, a striking characteristic of so many of the ideas that emerged from this new age - from eugenics to Freud's unconscious, to modern ideas of pacifism and world government - was the fear that the West was facing a possibly terminal crisis of civilization. The modern era promised progress of a kind, but it was overshadowed by a growing fear of decay and death, an end to the civilized world and the arrival of a new Dark Age - even though the country had suffered no occupation, no civil war and none of the bitter ideological rivalries of inter-war Europe, and had an economy that survived better than most. "The Morbid Age" explores how this strange paradox came about. Ultimately, Overy shows, the coming of war was almost welcomed as a way to resolve the contradictions and anxieties of this period, a war in which it was believed civilization would be either saved or utterly destroyed.

Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited

Abstract: PROTRACED COUNTERINSURGENCY: CHINESE COIN STRATEGY IN XINJIANG by MAJ J. Scott LaRonde, USA, 95 pages. In 1949, following the conclusion of its revolutionary war against the Chinese Nationalist forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) peacefully occupied China’s western most province of Xinjiang. For nearly sixty years, the PLA has conducted a counterinsurgency against several, mostly Uyghur-led, separatist movements. Despite periods of significant violence, particularly in the early 1950s and again in the 1990s, the separatist forces have not gained momentum and remained at a level one insurgency. Mao ZeDeng is revered as a master insurgent and the father of Fourth Generation Warfare. Strategists in armies worldwide study his writings on revolutionary and guerilla warfare. This monograph concludes that Mao, as well as the communist leaders who followed him, was also successful at waging protracted counterinsurgency. For nearly sixty years, separatist movements in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan have all failed. This monograph analyzes the conflict in Xinjiang and concludes that the Chinese continue to defeat the separatist movement in Xinjiang through a strategy that counters Mao’s seven fundamentals of revolutionary warfare.

Social identity and the dynamics of leadership: Leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the transformation of social reality

Abstract: Traditional models see leadership as a form of zero-sum game in which leader agency is achieved at the expense of follower agency and vice versa. Against this view, the present article argues that leadership is a vehicle for social identity-based collective agency in which leaders and followers are partners. Drawing upon evidence from a range of historical sources and from the BBC Prison Study, the present article explores the two sides of this partnership: the way in which a shared sense of identity makes leadership possible and the way in which leaders act as entrepreneurs of identity in order to make particular forms of identity and their own leadership viable. The analysis also focuses (a) on the way in which leaders' identity projects are constrained by social reality, and (b) on the manner in which effective leadership contributes to the transformation of this reality through the initiation of structure that mobilizes and redirects a group's identity-based social power.

Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective

Abstract: Part I. The Universe of Transitional Justice: 1. Athens in 411 and 403 BC. 2. The French restorations in 1814 and 1815 3. The larger universe of cases Part II. Analytics of Transitional Justice: 4. The structure of transitional justice 5. Wrongdoers 6. Victims 7. Constraints 8. Emotions 9. Politics.

Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In

Abstract: In January 1762, Prussia hovered on the brink of disaster. Despite the masterful generalship of Frederick the Great, the combined forces of France, Austria, and Russia had gradually worn down the Prussian army in six years of constant warfare. Austrian armies had marched deep into Saxony and Silesia, and the Russians had even sacked Berlin. Frederick’s defeat appeared imminent, and the enemy coalition intended to partition Prussia to reduce it to the status of a middle German state no more powerful than Bavaria or Saxony. And then a miracle occurred. The Prusso-phobic Czarina Elizabeth unexpectedly died, only to be succeeded by her son Peter, who idolized the soldier-king. Immediately Peter made peace with Frederick and ordered home the Russian armies. This reversal paralyzed the French and Austrians and allowed Frederick to rally his forces. Although Peter was soon ousted by his wife, Catherine, the allied armies never regained their advantage. In the end, Frederick held them off and kept Prussia intact.1 Frederick’s triumph in the Seven Years’ War was essential to Prussia’s eventual uniacation of Germany and all that followed from it. Conceiving of European history today without this victory is impossible. It is equally impossible to conceive of Prussian victory in 1763 without the death of Elizabeth and Peter’s adoration of Frederick. In the words of Christopher Duffy, “It is curious to reoect that if one lady had lived for a very few weeks longer, historians would by now have analyzed in most convincing detail the reasons for a collapse as ‘inevitable’ as that which overtook the Sweden of Charles XII.”2 In short, had it not been for the idiosyncrasies of one man and one woman, European history would look very, very different. Let Us Now Praise Great Men Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack

Neorealism's status‐quo bias: What security dilemma?

Abstract: (1996). Neorealism's status‐quo bias: What security dilemma? Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 90-121.