Organizing Victory: The War Conferences, 1941–45

Across 10 major WWII conferences Allied leaders met to coordinate military operations and plan for the peace. At first these consisted of the U.S. president, British prime minister, and their respective staffs; later conferences included Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and, once, leaders of China and Turkey. Editor and historian Rawson (Eyes Only: The Top Secret Correspondence Between Marshall and Eisenhower) has pored over minutes of these meetings, trimmed obscurities and repetitions, added footnotes to identify characters and events, and presented them with short introductions and an occasional comment. Rawson begins with the Arcadia Conference in Washington, D.C., held two weeks after Pearl Harbor, to which a vastly relieved Churchill invited himself in order to welcome the U.S. into the war and launch consultations, and carries through to Potsdam in July 1945, when leaders discussed punishing Germany, defeating Japan, and the development of postwar order. Readers looking for vivid accounts of these larger-than-life figures and the world-shaking events they attempted to control must look elsewhere; this is a reference aimed at scholars, but those with a penchant for WWII trivia may consider it a useful addition to their bookshelves. (Dec.)