Six Months in 1945 - FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman â from World
War to Cold War
Book description
From the bestselling author of One Minute to Midnight, this is
the riveting story of the last six months of World War II, when the
hopeful Allied situation inspired by the Yalta Conference descended
into the open conflict that would lead to the Cold War.
When FDR, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin gathered outside the
Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945, they had Hitler's armies on
the run, and victory was just a matter of time. Their mission was to
forge the decisions that would shape the postwar world, and above all
to divide up Europe between Soviet and Western influence. These men
had been fighting side by side for nearly four years but the cracks in
their alliance were emerging; even before the Second World War ended,
another conflict was beginning.
Six Months captures this turning point of the twentieth
century, re-creating the steady breakdown in relations between powers.
While the Berlin airlift and the Iron Curtain would not arrive for
three years, by August 1945 the West and the Soviet Union were firmly
on the path to a Cold War. Michael Dobbs brilliantly renders the
personalities and geopolitics that drove this descent, illuminating
the aims and frustrations of the key leaders. This is a vivid story of
power, personalities, and national interests competing at a crucial
moment in history.
Michael Dobbs was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at
the University of York, with fellowships at Princeton and Harvard. He is
a reporter for the Washington Post, where he spent much of his career as
a foreign correspondent covering the collapse of communism. He lives in
Bethesda, Maryland.
