Eight Days at Yalta
Diana Preston
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.
This is without doubt one of the best books I have ever read. While it is about the conference held at the Crimean resort of Yalta in the last months of the Second World War it is covers all the issues that plagued Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin throughout the war. The characterisations of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin are superb with none more than that of the dying Roosevelt who had amazingly been inaugurated for a fourth term even though near death. With his health so poor his mind was going and it showed most especially to the Russians. What also is so interesting is the characterisation of the support and advisory staff that came with “The Big Three” All three brought their daughters to look after them a tough task for the daughters of Roosevelt and Churchill who both were not well with Churchill living off an endless diet of alcohol and cigars. Thus both men’s doctors were fully occupied in keeping them able to attend all the meetings. Most interesting are the soviet agents in the British and American delegations who were to appear during the cold war of the 1950’s and thus all the aces were seemingly held by Stalin Also interesting are those not invited to Yalta such as the President of France Charles De Gaulle and the Chinese leader Chang Kai Check a slight De Gaulle in particular never forgot. All in all a fascinating story of a conference that most unfortunately shaped the post war world leaving nations such as Poland in bondage
Diana Preston is an acclaimed historian and author of the definitive Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology), The Boxer Rebellion, and The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842, among other works of narrative history. She and her husband, Michael, live in London. (Booktopia)
A fascinating look at post the post-World War 2 negotiating table that helped shaped a New World Order
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