Stahel has authored several books on the military operations on the Eastern Front, including Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Kiev (1941) and the Battle of Moscow; all books were published by Cambridge University Press. Reviewing Stahel's "Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East" for the "New Republic", the historian Richard Evans notes that "the story of the Battle of Kiev has been told many times, but seldom in such detail as it is in David Stahel’s book", at the same time "convey[ing] extremely complex military action with exemplary clarity". The reviewer writes: