Andrew Roberts

An epic joint biography, Masters and Commanders explores the degree to which the course of the Second World War turned on the relationships and temperaments of four of the strongest personalities of the twentieth century: political masters Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the commanders of their armed forces, General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each was exceptionally tough willed and strong minded, and each was certain that he knew best how to win the war. Yet each knew that he had to win at least two of the others if he was to have his strategy adopted. Andrew Roberts, whom The Economist calls "Britain's finest contemporary military historian," traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often-explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations, and he helps us to appreciate the motives and imperatives acting upon these key leaders struggling to destroy Nazism.Drawing on newly discovered verbatim accounts of Churchill's war-cabinet meetings and on the private papers of nearly seventy contemporaries, Roberts reconstructs the lively debates of the four principals and other leading figures, and attempts to answer some of the key questions of Allied strategy. Why, when the most direct route from Germany to Britain was through north-western France, did the Western Allies launch attacks via North Africa, Sicily, and Rome? Why, if Operation Overlord in June 1944 was intended to be the start of the Allies' great thrust into Germany, did four hundred thousand men land five hundred miles to the south, in southern France, two months later? Why did the Allies not take Berlin, Vienna, or Prague and allow the Iron Curtain to descend where it did?Masters and Commanders dramatically re-creates the atmosphere, debates, and maneuverings through which Allied grand strategy was forged and reveals the profound impact of personality upon history.

"Here, Andrew Roberts tells the story of those countries where English is spoken by the majority of people as their first language - Great Britain and her dependencies, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the British West Indies and Ireland. In the course of researching this book, Roberts researched the private papers of over two hundred individuals in thirty archives on three continents."--BOOK JACKET.

What is leadership? What are the secrets of the phenomenon by which one person can lead millions -- sometimes to salvation, sometimes to destruction? Is leadership innate, or can it be learned? Above all, are there any techniques to leadership that can be applied whatever the message the leader wants to convey? By choosing Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, two totally opposite leaders -- both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead -- award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines the phenomenon of political and military leadership, and comes to some fascinating and provoking conclusions. With an introduction and conclusion that draw fascinating parallels with leaders from other eras, and by incisively examining those aspects of leadership that Hitler and Churchill had in common, Roberts comes to a series of conclusions about the practice of leadership that are as relevant today as they were before and during the Second World War. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war. - Jacket.

"At breakfast on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, the Emperor Napoleon declared that the Duke of Wellington was a bad general, the British were bad soldiers and that France could not fail to win an easy victory Forever afterwards, historians have accused him of gross overconfidence and massively underestimating the calibre of the British commander opposed to him Now the award-winning historian Andrew Roberts presents an original, highly revisionist view of the relationship between the two greatest captains of their age."--Jacket.

A controversial account of the Churchill years by a bestselling historian.This highly praised book by the Wolfson History Prize-winning author of Salisbury tackles six aspects of Churchilliana and uncovers a plethora of disturbing facts about wartime and post-war Britain. His revelations include: - The case for the impeachment of Lord Mountbatten - The Nazi sympathies of Sir Arthur Bryant, hitherto considered a 'patriotic historian' - The British establishment's doubt about Churchill's role after Dunkirk - The appeasement of the trade unions in Churchill's Indian summer - The inside story of black immigration in the early 1950s - The anti-Churchill stance adopted by the Royal Family in 1940. (from Amazon)

"Visual propaganda was one of the most effective tools in shaping public opinion in the 20th century. These colourful and eye-catching examples of the art of propaganda, collected together here for the first time, provide a rare opportunity to understand how abstract political concepts were packaged visually for a mass audience. Despite national differences, these postcards - which span from the 1920s all the way to the 1970s - possess an almost eery similarity in their graphic depictions of heroic national leaders; optimistic workers, their faces illuminated by the sun; strong muscular men, eyes gazing resolutely into the distance beyond unfurling flags; and children collected in poses of joyful adulation." "Postcards from Utopia offers a striking look at the art of power and its mythical representation at a time of great political upheaval and experimentation."--BOOK JACKET.