In a reinterpretation of the postwar years, historian Robert Dallek examines what drove the leaders of the most powerful nations around the globe--Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Mao, de Gaulle, and Truman--to rely on traditional power politics despite the catastrophic violence their nations had endured. The decisions of these men, for better and often for worse, had profound consequences for decades to come, influencing relations and conflicts with...

A marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II. Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after the war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale in much of Asia including China, Korea, Indochina, the Philippines, Japan and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power...

Autumn 1943. Since Stalingrad, Hitler has known that Germany cannot win the war. The upcoming Allied conference in Teheran will set the ground rules for their second front-and for the peace to come. Realizing that the unconditional surrender FDR has demanded will leave Germany in ruins, Hitler has put out peace feelers. (Unbeknownst to him, so has Himmler, who is ready to stage a coup in order to reach an accord.) FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate....

When Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run, and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace, but instead they set the stage for a forty-four division of Europe into Soviet and Western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was beginning to fracture. Although the most dramatic Cold War confrontations...