Seriously though, it would have to be an ancient historian, such as Tacitus or Heridotus, without which modern historians would have nothing to base knowledge from.
I like Cornelius Ryans arnhem book althoug he was a journalist and not an historian he did have a great talent of binding the story together with eye witness accounts from all sides together with explaining the strategic overlook
its a brilliant book the only thing one can critisize is that he was so ununderstandign that Monty didn`t want the former SS soldier prince Bernhard to be in his headquarters to much but that fact was perhaps not know to the author
His fist D day book are also good if not as good as the arnhem one
David Irving is an interesting historian perhaps lacking a bit spiritual and elegance in the text but always interesting since he doesn`t care about what is politically correct to say
Antony Beevor is also good read his Stalingrad, Crete, Berlin and part of the Spanish Civil War
although of what I said I do think it seems he gives the left in the Spanish Civil War preferential treatment and he sometimes panders to the present day elites abit to much overall he seeks the truth I believe
Some of the most interesting works are done by the soldiers/generals/civilians from the era, you could never get a sense of things like Battle of Stalingrad unless you read the accounts from the people who experienced it.
That's really true. It's the fine details that others would merely overlook... sights, smells, sounds etc. My grandfather for instance who fought at Kursk told me such detailed things, truly you don't understand the Eastern front till you have a veteran tell you.
Siege of Tobruk - One German POW said: "I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland, France, and Belgium, once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted that they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry still keep fighting." Rommel wrote of seeing "a batch of some fifty or sixty Australian prisoners ... marched off close behind us—immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."
