The third volume in Nik Cornish's photographic history of the Second World War on the Eastern Front records in vivid visual detail the sequence of Red Army offensives that pushed the Wehrmacht back across Russia after the failure of the Operation Citadel, the German attack at Kursk. Previously unpublished images show the epic scale of the build-up to the Kursk battle and the enormous cost in terms of lives and material of the battle itself. They also show that the military initiative was now firmly in Soviet hands, for the balance of power on the Eastern Front had shifted and the Germans were on the defensive and in retreat. Subsequent chapters chronicle the hard-fought and bloody German withdrawal across western Russia and the Ukraine, recording the Red Army's liberation of occupied Soviet territory. Not only do the photographs track the sequence of events on the ground, they also show the equipment and the weapons used by both sides, the living conditions experienced by the troops and the devastation the war left in its wake.

The Soviet victory over the Germans at Stalingrad was decisive for the war on the Eastern Front and for the Second World War as a whole, and the story of the long, bitter battle on the banks of the Volga has fascinated historians ever since. While it has been the subject of countless histories, memoirs and eyewitness accounts, the gruelling reality of the battle on the ground, in the shattered streets and buildings of the city, has rarely been recorded photographically. And this is the great strength of Nik Cornish's selection of unforgettable images. He documents every aspect of the fighting - the dreadful conditions endured by the soldiers, the jagged outline of the ruined city, the harrowing daily routine of street fighting and close-quarter combat, the casualties and the dead, and the battle behind the lines - the tremendous effort made by the Germans and the Soviets to sustain their men in what had become a fight to the death. But perhaps most memorable of all, the photographs give us glimpses of the lives and deaths of soldiers on both sides who participated in one of the most terrible battles in history.

Between 1941 and 1944, in the war on the Eastern Front, Soviet partisans fought a ruthless underground campaign behind the German lines. During those three terrible years of occupation they spied on the Germans, disrupted their communications, sabotaged road and rail routes and carried out assassinations and raids, and thousands of these irregular soldiers lost their lives. Yet their exploits are frequently overlooked in general histories of the conflict, and their experience of the war and their contribution to the Soviet victory are rarely recognized. That is why Nik Cornish's collection of photographs of the Soviet partisans is a landmark in the field. In a sequence of over 150 images, most of them previously unpublished, he gives a fascinating all-round portrait of the lives of the partisans and their struggle to resist and survive in a war that was waged with almost unparalleled cruelty on both sides. And, in his commentary, he outlines the history of the partisans - their desperate, chaotic beginnings in the wake of the German attack, their increasing coordination, daring and effectiveness as the war went on, and the key role they played as the Germans were forced back. He also records, through the photographs, the merciless counter-measures taken by the Germans and the reprisals. His book gives a compelling insight into one of the most important side shows of the Second World War.