About the Author

A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, Defense Language Institute, Institute for Russian and Eastern European Studies, and US Army War College, before retiring from the U.S. Army in December 1993, Colonel David M. Glantz served for over 30 years in various field artillery, intelligence, teaching, and research assignments in Europe and Vietnam, taught at the United States Military Academy, the Combat Studies Institute, and Army War College, founded and directed the U.S. Army's Foreign (Soviet) Military Studies Office, and established and currently edits The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. A member of the Russian Federation's Academy of Natural Sciences, he has written or co-authored more than 60 books and self-published studies and atlases, as well as hundreds of articles on Soviet military strategy, intelligence, and deception and the history of the Red (Soviet) Army, Soviet (Russian) military history, and World War II. In recognition of his work, he has received numerous awards including the Society of Military History's prestigious Samuel Eliot Morrison Prize for his contributions to the study of military history.

Reviews

This is operational history at its best, meticulously researched and presented for the reader to analyse.
*Warfare Magazine*

...its conclusion will have a profound impact on future books written about the Eastern Front in World War II.
*Bowling Green Daily News*

...such a thorough and scrupulous account of these battles is long overdue. By closely examining these early battles, the author shows how the weakened Soviet military leadership studied their early mistakes, regained their balance, and struck back with deadly fury. Though the Soviet nightmare was to last for another four long years, the painful lessons learned on the battlefields in and around Smolensk during the summer of 1941 were the key to the ultimate Soviet victory.
*The Russian Review*