Montgomery: Unbeatable, Unbearable

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A01=Gary Mead
Author_Gary Mead
battlefield
BBC
biography
British Army
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Category=NHW
Category=NHWR7
Churchill
emotional life
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fathers Day
Gary Mead
gift for dad
legacy
military general
military history
Second World War
social change
war hero

Product details

  • ISBN 9781408878583
  • Weight: 600g
  • Dimensions: 154 x 236mm
  • Publication Date: 04 Jun 2026
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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'Mead significantly expands our understanding of Montgomery himself, his motivation and his genius' GENERAL LORD RICHARD DANNATT
'Deeply researched, highly insightful... Contains all anyone needs to know about Britain's most consequential soldier of the Second World War' ANDREW ROBERTS

Known to all as ‘Monty’, Bernard Law Montgomery’s greatest achievement was to give the British Army self-belief after Dunkirk, ensuring that his troops were inspired to embark on the long struggle to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. The self-proclaimed ‘cad’ of the army would regularly tour his forces to talk to them in person, but employed disastrously outdated tactics in the Second World War. Yet he still secured famous wins in North Africa, most notably in the second Battle of El-Alamein. He followed that by leading his troops into Europe, first by invading Italy in September 1943 and then commanding the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944. However, his strategy for the Battle of Arnhem proved a costly failure.

No other general was so hated by his peers; no other general was held in such affection by the ordinary ranks and by the public. Now, fifty years since his death, Montgomery remains a highly controversial figure. This balanced, accessible and fresh account of one of Britain’s most complex war heroes looks beyond the battlefield. Delving into Montgomery’s belligerent Victorian boyhood, his family’s legacy of financial precariousness, his love-hate relationship with Winston Churchill and his dubious romances, Gary Mead asks what life experiences and personal secrets influenced this man’s volcanic emotional life and, ultimately, his multifaceted and disputed legacy.

Definitive and profound, Montgomery: Unbeatable, Unbearable captures the motives, spirit and psychological complexities of the man dubbed Britain’s last great soldier.

Gary Mead studied at the University of Newcastle before becoming a journalist for the New Statesman, Observer, Financial Times and BBC World Service. He has also worked for the World Gold Council and in Washington, DC. He is the author three previous books on military history.

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