Phillips Payson O'Brien

Phillips Payson O'Brien is an American-British historian and academic who is Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is one of the leading military historians of his generation, specialising in the grand strategy and war-making capacity of nations during the world wars and beyond. How the War Was Won challenges conventional thinking about what determined the outcome of the Second World War, arguing that the decisive factors were not the great land battles but the broader struggle for production, technology and control of the seas and skies. O'Brien draws on extensive research to show how the war was won through strategic choices about resource allocation and industrial capacity as much as through battlefield tactics. Available as both a book and an audiobook, How the War Was Won offers essential listening and reading for military history enthusiasts and anyone who wants to understand the Second World War from a fresh strategic perspective that goes beyond the familiar narratives of famous battles.