Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War

About this book

From the author of the best-selling One Minute to Midnight, a riveting account of the pivotal six month period spanning the end of World War II, the dawn of the atomic age, and the beginning of the Cold War. 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 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 against Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantlycaptures this momentous historical turning point, chronicling the geopolitical twists behind the fall of the Iron Curtain, while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants. It is a vividly rendered story of individual and national interests in fierce competition at a seminal moment in history.