Six Months in 1945 by Michael Dobbs

Six Months in 1945 by Michael Dobbs

When Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph 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 year 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 such as the Berlin airlift were still to come, a new struggle for global hegemony had got underway by August 1945 when Truman used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants.

Michael Dobbs was a major adviser to John Major when he was voted out, and was by Ms Thatcher's side when she took her first steps into Downing Street as Prime Minister. In the interim, he was bombed in Brighton, expelled from Chequers, and blamed for the failure to obtain a Blair-Major discussion on television. He is presently a BBC TV current affairs broadcaster and one of the country's prominent political analysts.