The Hinge Of Fate

The British prime minister recounts battles from Midway to Stalingrad, and how the Allies turned the tide of WWII: “Superlative.” —The New York Times The Hinge of Fate is the dramatic account of the Allies’ changing fortunes. In the first half of the book, Winston Churchill describes the fearful period in which the Germans threaten to overwhelm the Red Army, Rommel dominates the war in the desert, and Singapore falls to the Japanese. In the span of just a few months, the Allies begin to turn the tide, achieving decisive victories at Midway and Guadalcanal, and repulsing the Germans at Stalingrad. As confidence builds, the Allies begin to gain ground against the Axis powers. This is the fourth in the six-volume account of World War II told from the unique viewpoint of the man who led his nation in the fight against tyranny. The series is enriched with extensive primary sources, as we are presented with not only Churchill’s retrospective analysis of the war, but also memos, letters, orders, speeches, and telegrams, day-by-day accounts of reactions as the drama intensifies. Throughout these volumes, we listen as strategies and counterstrategies unfold in response to Hitler’s conquest of Europe, planned invasion of England, and assault on Russia, in a mesmerizing account of the crucial decisions made as the fate of the world hangs in the balance. “No memoirs by generals or politicians . . . are in the same class.” —The New York Times

Churchill's history of the Second World War is, and will remain, the definitive work. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent historical reconstruction and an enduring work of literature.'He is not writing history so much as reliving it - with its animosities still remembered, its wounds still smarting. This is a story told while the sweat and shock of mortal combat are still upon the teller.' Evening Standard'That the acclamation has been even greater than might have been anticipated is the measure of his unique achievement - to have given the authority and the majesty of history to the stuff of his own times.' Daily Telegraph

The aftermath of World War I is explored in the fourth volume of Winston Churchill’s “remarkable” eyewitness account of history (Jon Meacham, bestselling author of Franklin and Winston). Once the war was over, the story didn’t end—not for Winston Churchill, and not for the West. The fourth volume of Churchill’s series, The World Crisis: The Aftermath documents the fallout of WWI—including the Irish Treaty and the peace conferences between Greece and Turkey. The period immediately after World War I was extremely chaotic—and it takes a genius of narrative description and organization to accurately and accessibly describe it for us. Churchill, who went on to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, depicts the international disorganization and anarchy in the period immediately after the war—with the unique perspective of both a historian and a political insider. “Whether as a statesman or an author, Churchill was a giant; and The World Crisis towers over most other books about the Great War.” —David Fromkin, author of A Peace to End All Peace

An episodic log of some of the author's more memorable hours aloft in peace and as a member of the Air Transport Command in war.

How tiny variations in our personal DNA can determine how we look, how we behave, how we get sick, and how we get well. News stories report almost daily on the remarkable progress scientists are making in unraveling the genetic basis of disease and behavior. Meanwhile, new technologies are rapidly reducing the cost of reading someone's personal DNA (all six billion letters of it). Within the next ten years, hospitals may present parents with their newborn's complete DNA code along with her footprints and APGAR score. In Genetic Twists of Fate, distinguished geneticists Stanley Fields and Mark Johnston help us make sense of the genetic revolution that is upon us. Fields and Johnston tell real life stories that hinge on the inheritance of one tiny change rather than another in an individual's DNA: a mother wrongly accused of poisoning her young son when the true killer was a genetic disorder; the screen siren who could no longer remember her lines because of Alzheimer's disease; and the president who was treated with rat poison to prevent another heart attack. In an engaging and accessible style, Fields and Johnston explain what our personal DNA code is, how a few differences in its long list of DNA letters makes each of us unique, and how that code influences our appearance, our behavior, and our risk for such common diseases as diabetes or cancer.

From uninterrupted defeat to almost unbroken success: a year when Rommel is gradually thrown back in North Africa, and in the Pacific the tide turns.