Yalta: The Price of Peace

A colorful and gripping portrait of the three aging leaders at their historic encounter.- THE WALL STREET JOURNALIn February 1945, three of the twentieth centurys towering figures-Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin-met at Yalta, a resort town on the Black Sea, as their armies converged on Berlin.- Each came with sharply different views of what the world should look like after the war.- Over the course of eight fateful days they partitioned Germany, approved the most aggressive aerial bombing campaign in history, redrew the borders of Eastern Europe, and created a new international organization to settle future disputes.- Two months later, Roosevelt was dead, Stalin was strengthening his grip on Poland, and Churchill was on the cusp of a humiliating electoral defeat. For sixty-five years, opinion has been bitterly divided on what they achieved.- Did Yalta pave the way to the Cold War?- Did an ailing FDR give too much to Stalin?- In this groundbreaking book, S. M. Plokhy draws on newly declassified Soviet documents to lay to rest the myth of Yalta and paints an original and surprising portrait of FDR as a wartime leader.Like Munich, Yalta is shorthand for a pivotal historical event with all the loaded emotional baggage of its consequences . . . Plokhy brings the players to life, making a familiar story feel lively and fresh.- THE WASHINGTON POSTA wonderful work of history: brilliantly researched and judiciously argued.- Robert Dallek, author of AN UNFINISHED LIFE: JOHN F. KENNEDY