Absolute War is indeed a very good book. It is a serious study written with the ease and style of a popular history. As for Gantz, mind-numbingly turgid though his style may be, he is not the worst. That accolade goes to Anthony Tucker-Jones an ex-analyst who turned to writing military history, and produced the appalling 'Stalins Revenge', an account of Bagration taken from a handful of secondary sources and written like a 'D Grade' school essay.