Beevor really is very good, especially at keeping the events 'alive' with events seen by someone at ground level: a soldier realising at D Day the other soldier's 'red gloves' are blood up to his wrists, Australian soldiers looting a shop for milk for an evacuee's baby, the Paris crowd at a trial cheering when they hear an ex-collaborator was beaten when arrested, an officer in Crete bollocking the man who'd find him a space on the boat because his duty is to go last