Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, in particular the period from the initial German attack to Operation Uranus and the Soviet victory.

Keith Lowe, writing in The Telegraph, notes that Stalingrad transformed both Beevor's reputation and that of military history, making it from something only for "retired colonels and armchair fantasists" into a "sleek, attention-grabbing subject" always on the bestseller lists.

[1] Richard Bernstein, in The New York Times, writes that "the colossal scale of Stalingrad, the megalomania, the utter absurdity, the sheer magnitude of the carnage in what many military historians see as the turning point in the war, are marvelously captured".

[7][8] Serhiy Oliyinyk, the head of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting department on licensing and distribution-control, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that several paragraphs prevented the import of the books, citing a passage that purportedly said: "Ukrainian nationalists were tasked with shooting the children" so that they could "spare the feelings of SS Sonderkommando".

"[nb 2][6] In the first series of the British Ch-4 TV comedy Peep Show (2003), character Mark Corrigan (David Mitchell) owns a copy of Stalingrad.

In the TV adaption of The Night Manager, arms dealer Richard Roper (played by Hugh Laurie), has a copy of Stalingrad in his Majorcan villa.