World War II (1931-1945)
“The Second World War presented a mirror to the human condition which blinded anyone who looked into it.” — Norman Mailer, “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster” (1957)
Of the endless ocean of books on the Second World War, we have dozens and dozens of new and carefully chosen titles. I define it as beginning with the Japanese Empire’s invasion of Manchuria and ending with not only V-E and V-J Days but also the immediate crises of displaced people, the Soviet Union’s creation of the Iron Curtain, and the growing revelations of the extent of the Holocaust.
In significant ways the Second World War was the defining crucible of the 20th Century. The First World War was prelude, the legacy of the 19th Century’s imperialism, and the Cold War was the sequel. Of the making of books about it there is no end — but the persistence of good research and good writing, and good publication underscores the war’s centrality of the world we live in today and the world our descendents will live in for the foreseeable future.
The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942
The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942
Longlisted for the National Book Award
"This bold argument . . . will undoubtedly change the way we see Franklin Roosevelt."
--Christian Science Monitor
"Masterly."
--Wall Street Journal
A dramatic, eye-opening account of how FDR took personal charge of the military direction of World War II
Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving Roosevelt aides and family members, The Mantle of Command offers a radical new perspective on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's masterful -- and underappreciated -- leadership of the Allied war effort. After the disaster of Pearl Harbor, we see Roosevelt devising a global strategy that will defeat Hitler and the Japanese, rescue Churchill and the British people, and quell a near insurrection of his own American generals and War Department. All the while, Hamilton's account drives toward Operation Torch -- the invasion of French Northwest Africa -- and the outcome of the war hangs in the balance. The Mantle of Command is an intimate, sweeping look at a great President in history's greatest conflict.