Eight Days at Yalta
How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World
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- 7,49 €
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- 7,49 €
Περιγραφή εκδότη
Meticulously researched and vividly written, Eight Days at Yalta is a remarkable work of intense historical drama.
In the last winter of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin arrived in the Crimean resort of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast and intermittent bonhomie they decided on the conduct of the final stages of the war against Germany, on how a defeated and occupied Germany should be governed, on the constitution of the nascent United Nations and on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Greece.
Only three months later, less than a week after the German surrender, Roosevelt was dead and Churchill was writing to the new President, Harry S. Truman, of ‘an iron curtain’ that was now ‘drawn down upon [the Soviets’] front’.
Diana Preston chronicles eight days that created the post-war world, revealing Roosevelt’s determination to bring about the dissolution of the British Empire and Churchill’s conviction that he and the dying President would run rings round the Soviet premier. But Stalin monitored everything they said and made only paper concessions, while his territorial ambitions would soon result in the imposition of Communism throughout Eastern Europe.
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Historian Preston (Paradise in Chains) describes how "war-weary" British prime minister Winston Churchill, "seriously ill" U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin planned the end of WWII in this spirited, behind-the-scenes account of the February 1945 Yalta Conference. Preston mixes foreign policy critique arguing, for example, that if the U.S. had threatened Russia with curtailing the Lend-Lease program for military allies, Poland might have been better served by the negotiations, and if Churchill and Roosevelt had been better briefed on the progress of the Manhattan Project, they might not have been so keen to have the Red Army join the fight against Japan with vibrant descriptions of backstage activities, including Soviet intelligence agents intercepting British and American communications and "half-starving" Romanian prisoners of war reviving dilapidated palace gardens. Preston brings to the fore secondary characters like Anna Boettiger, Roosevelt's daughter, who curtailed access to her father while looking after his health, and reveals how Stalin's unwillingness to compromise over Eastern Europe, FDR's focus on the United Nations, Churchill's determination to retain control over Hong Kong, and the exclusion of "irksome" French leader Charles de Gaulle helped to shape the post-WWII order. Colorful personalities, piquant details, and a diverse array of perspectives make this a satisfying introduction to the subject.
