Poisoned Peace - Couverture rigide

Praise for 1815: THE ROADS TO WATERLOO
'This is diplomatic history de luxe ... an extraordinarily vivid world of real diplomats, real diaries, and real wives and women. A splendid tour de force in every sense'

(Elizabeth Longford)

Beautifully written, admirably researched, utterly riveting (Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph)

A brilliant account; imaginative and wildly ambitious ... A series of vivid snapshots of scenes and moments is cross-cut with microscopic examination of personalities, motives and manoeuvres by participants in the peace process (J.B. Pick, The Scotsman)

'His approach is thematic, eclectic and discursive ... It reads like a conversation with a sympathetic guide ...and Dallas convincingly demonstrates that where we are can be understood only by where we were. (The Daily Telegraph)

'Not a conventional history of 1945 ... but highly visual, and there is certainly much enjoyment and instruction to be derived from this book. (Independent on Sunday, Frank McLynn)

Dallas is a visual historian ... Here we have, in microscopic detail, an impressionistic study of a dying European ruling caste, unable to comprehend how such a catastrophe could have happened, and incapable of planning s future in which it didn't recur (John Crossland, Independent on Sunday)

Dallas has the journalist's eye for detail, and for the great quote. (The Glasgow Herald)

This is a not-to-be-forgotten read by an author of outstanding quality (The Spectator)

Gregor Dallas's talent for engaging readers by telling history on several levels is highlighted in Poisoned Peace. (Soldier)

'An ambitious, generally readable, often absorbing, sometimes vivid book ... Dallas wisely organises his story around certain key moments.' Brendan Simms. (The Sunday Times)

Unlike the Napoleonic Wars, and the First World War, there was no peace settlement in 1945. The shape of Europe was determined entirely by military force, dividing it into two halves which corresponded to neither geography, culture nor previous history. From the D-Day landings to the collapse of Berlin, military movements were more and more dominated by separate national ambitions. And the Yalta and Potsdam conferences were more recognitions of a fait accompli than agreements on the terms of peace.

With Gregor Dallas we re-live the vast events of the end of the war years in the experience of real people. The Birth of the Present opens in Berlin on the day of Hitler’s suicide, where life, such as it existed, continued on the roofs, in the attics, in the streets, ruins and cellars of the city. We live too with the armies in the field, their movements determined by the cycle of seasons, and with civilians, particularly in booming wartime Washington, bombed London, liberated Paris, annihilated Warsaw, doomed Berlin, and Moscow gripped by poverty and secret terror.