Allies at War: a 'revelatory' account of the Second World War

Tim Bouverie's 'old-fashioned diplomatic history' explores the often fraught relationship between world powers

Book cover of Allies At War by Tim Bouverie
A big strength of Tim Bouverie's book is how it takes in many of the War's lesser-known struggles and connects them to its main narrative
(Image credit: Penguin Books)

Can "anything new be said about the Second World War", asked Adam Sisman in The Observer. "Unexpectedly the answer is yes."

Among the "surprising facts" I learnt from this "revelatory book" are that pro-Russian feeling was so strong in Britain in 1942 that "War and Peace" became a bestseller, and that Mahatma Gandhi considered Hitler "not as bad as he is depicted".

A "work of old-fashioned diplomatic history", "Allies at War" focuses on the fraught and often shifting alliances between the countries that opposed the Axis powers: chiefly Britain, America, the Soviet Union, but also the Free French (led by Charles de Gaulle) and China. In the foreground are the "Big Three" leaders – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – but there are also "walk-on parts" for a host of foreign ministers, ambassadors and emissaries. Although Tim Bouverie has clearly done his research, he doesn't let this overwhelm his narrative, which is consistently lucid, entertaining and witty.

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