Jay Winik brings to life the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.
1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler's waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies-but with a fateful cost. Now Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history.
1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler's Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world's reach, one challenge-saving Europe's Jews-seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt's grasp.
Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders.
"Posing as a book on President Roosevelt in 1944, this extraordinary book is in fact a compelling, comprehensive history of the Second World War told from FDR's point of view, certainly, but also featuring profound insights into Churchill, Hitler, the ordinary soldiers and civilians, and the monstrous suffering of Europe's Jews. The width of the canvas is astonishing. 1944 might have been, as Wini
Andrew Roberts, author of Masters and Commander: How Four Titans Won the War in the West,
