Fateful Choices : Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

The newest immensely original undertaking from the historian who gave us the defining two-volume portrait of Hitler, Fateful Choicesputs Ian Kershaw’s analytical and storytelling gifts on dazzling display. From May 1940 to December 1941, the leaders of the world’s six major powers made a series of related decisions that determined the final outcome of World War II and shaped the course of human destiny. As the author examines the connected stories of these profound choices, he restores a sense of drama and contingency to this pivotal moment, producing one of the freshest, most important books on World War II in years—one with powerful contemporary relevance.

Ian Kershaw is professor of modern history at the University of Sheffield. He is the author, most recently, of Making Friends with Hitler, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, and the two-volume biography Hitler 1889-û1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-û1945: Nemesis. The first volume was short-listed for the Whitbread Biography Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction, while the second volume won the Wolfson Literary Award for History and the inaugural British Academy Prize.