Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've got interested in the North African theatre and I would like a good, general overview to cover the whole sweep of the campaign, before I start to read into specific areas of interest.

I've got the Alan Moorehead book, The Desert War trilogy. Can anyone recommend anything else?

Barrie Pitt's three volume 'Crucible of War' is perhaps the best comprehensive study of the desert war.

An army at dawn was a good read

I second An Army at Dawn

From a wargaming perspective, I would recommend the 2 Osprey Battle Orders titles "Desert Rats - British 8th Army in North Africa 1941-43" and "Rommel's Afrika Korps - Tobruk to Alamein". While they don't go into much depth, between them they give a good overview of the desert war from both sides, and include useful information on organisation and equipment that 'proper' histories don't include.

I have started the Moorehead book. It's not a history as I expected, it's basically his war correspondent reports and diaries put together into a continuous narrative of his own view of the war. Very readable, however, and he did get around so it should give me some structure of the whole thing.