I just always assumed that Buchanan's motives sprang at least partially from his isolationist viewpoint and thought the book might be colored a bit much by that. However, it has been a book I've been tempted to read.

Taylor's book certainly serves as a ringing indictment of the UK, because it was the British envoys who suggested to Hitler in the first place that Austria, the Sudetenland and the Corridor were places where the British would look favorably on a redefinition of Germany's borders in Germany's favor. The statement, made over and over again, is that it was assumed Germany and the Soviets would get into a war, and everyone other than Churchill was more concerned about a Soviet victory than a German one.

As for the Soviet position, I am amazed that Western historians (even after the Soviet archives opened up) are still able to seriously try to say that Stalin wasn't preparing for war. Hell, forget that. You don't even need access to secret materials. Just look at what he said on the record. Soviet newspapers printed his speeches, and he said over and over throughout the 1920s and 1930s that the "imperialists" of Europe would fight among each other and the Soviet Union would get involved, but that it was important to get involved last, when everyone else's capability to resist had been exhausted. He even said that "fascism will help to start this war - and when I say this I mean fascism of the German variety expressly". That was in 1934, if memory serves.

The Soviet Union actively took steps to ensure that it had a common border with Germany (the partition of Poland, the occupation of the Baltics and the seizure of Bessarabia) and put the entire country on a war footing in January 1941. I'm not sure how anyone can say the Soviets weren't preparing for war or planning on attacking unless they forward a theory that the entire Soviet leadership was suffering from the effects of lead poisoning or something to that effect.

As for characterizing the events on the East Front, the history is fairly clear. The Soviets did win victories in the defense of Moscow in December 1941 and Stalingrad in the Winter of 1942. I don't think you can characterize the German defeats as the result of "command decisions". The Germans did that, certainly, but that was for domestic consumption. However, those victories were Pyrrhic victories because the loss ratio for the first three years of the war was such that, if sustained, the Soviet Union would run out of soldiers before Germany did. In that sense, Russia was losing the war while winning it.

By Kursk, though, I think the victories claimed by the Red Army correspond to the reality on the ground. Although Hitler's failure to reinforce the breakthrough made at Kursk in 1943 was blamed by many as the "cause" of the failure of the operation, in reality it was the fact that by 1943 the Red Army's technical capabilities was vastly superior to those it had in 1941. The T-34 was not sophisticated, but it was highly effective and produced in massive quantities. By contrast, the German military hardware was never properly implemented or supported. The variety of modifications made to the German tanks (Look at all of the different models and variants of the PzKpfw III, for example) were a nightmare for factories because the parts had to be changed and re-tooled, and they were a nightmare for crews because "standard parts" was an unknown concept. The Ferdinand (aka Elefant) self-propelleds were able to knock out any Russian tank going, but of the 89 used in Kursk, half had broken down after a few days.

The steep learning curve of the Red Army allowed it to win real victories starting at Kursk and, of course, from then on. However, I think there won't be many people (who have read anything on the subject) who would not argue that Stalingrad, for example, was a very, very Pyrrhic victory for the Soviets. If Hitler had let von Paulus withdraw with his army intact I don't think it could even properly be called a victory.