Well, first, the book does not attempt to give an overview of WWII. It tries to deliver what's in the title, the story of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

So, there is nothing in the book about the War in the Pacific (almost nothing). The book also mainly focuses on what was going on inside Germany and the Nazi leadership, much more than what was happening in Britain, Russia, the USA, France, or other participants. He also spends more than half the book examining the Rise of the Third Reich, before the War even started.

Shirer was a reporter, not an academic historian. He lived in and reported on Germany for the period of the rise of the Third Reich. He went back to Germany after the war to report on the Nuremberg Trials.

As he said in his foreword, "This personal experience would not have led me to attempt to write this book had there not occured at the end of World War II an event unique in history. This was the capture of most of the confidential archives of the German government and all its branches."

Shirer became aware of this through the documents assembled for the Nuremberg trials. He then gained access to literally tons of German Documents (485 tons of German Foreign Office Documents alone) when they were opened by the US government to a small group of scholars in 1955.

Shirer lived through the whole war, and saw a lot of the Reich at first hand (he hated it). He also had early access to more source material than anyone could ever read (all unindexed).

Shirer says, "I found it extremely difficult and not always possible to learn the exact truth about Hitler's Germany. The avalanche of documentary material helped one further along the road to truth than would have seemed possible twenty years ago, but its very vastness could often be confusing. And in all human records and testimony there are bound to be baffling contradictions."

Later scholars have undoubtedly learned more from the vast material. Other scholars have undoubtedly focused more on other aspects of WWII, or on the perspective from other participants or countries.

Still, Shirer gives a good overview of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. His book also is well written and readable by the general public (perhaps an advantage of being a journalist rather than an historian?).

I've heard it's a good book and considering it has good reviews I'm gonna roll with it The question you've asked can be found in WWII summaries and if you're just an ordinary duder like me there's waaaaay to many info on WWII because it was such an important event.

He'll overshoot the fact it was actually imperial Japan that started WWII with invasion of old China in 1931 then nazi Germany invaded Poland around 1932. These were two separate was until Germany invaded Russia in 1941 and the attack of pearl harbour the same year by the Japanese. These were crucial because the nazis and imperialists were able to bombarded their neighbours with absolute impunity and these particular events shift power to be in favour of the US and her allies. I also want to point out the US were more focused in Europe because the UK and Russia were closer. From a military standpoint the decisions of nazi and imperial were idiotic because it allowed them to encircled by allied forces similar to the Triple Entent during WWI

So it pretty much was two major wars merged into one that consequently involved the countries of the whole world to fight