Too many counterfactual historians, when addressing World War II, seem to suffer from a sneaking sympathy for the Wehrmacht. Furthermore, it is often accepted at face value that, if Hitler had not directed the thrust of his Panzers twice (towards Kiev in '41, and away from Stalingrad into the Caucasus in the summer of '42) then the Germans would have defeated the Soviets.
Downing falls into neither of these traps. He explicitly refuses to give the Germans those things which would have given them potentialy war-winning advantages: an economy geared for sustained warfare or a political acceptance of liberation in occupied Russia. To do so, he rightly considers, would require fundamental moral and philosophical changes in the nature of the regime that were profoundly at odds with both National Socialist ideology, and with Hitler's personal Weltanschaung.
Downing allows - as the title and cover suggest - for Germany taking Moscow. He also allows the Japanese a decisive triumph at Midway.
The result is a counterfactual book that runs contrary to the trend in this area. Downing is not saying "what could the Axis have done differently that would have allowed them to win?" Instead, he guides us to the conclusion that, given their early decisions, whatever the Axis powers did, they were doomed to fail.
This is not to say that he subscribes to a neo-Marxist analysis of "historical inevitablism". Rather, it is an intriguing exposition of how the logistical, manpower and strategic factors that faced the Axis would eventually have ground them down to an extent that rendered operational-doctrinal advantages irrelevant.
Thoroughly enjoyable on the level of a page-turner, this also provides a range of historically-grounded argument that will interest the military historian without alienating the casual reader.
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(I posted this at Amazon, too: it's not plagiarism, it's me..)