The Hour Strikes: A Discussion with Historians Evan & Oscie Thomas
About the Event
Join New York Times bestselling historian Evan Thomas as he discusses his new book, The Hour Strikes: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Hitler at the Hinge of History, 1941, a riveting, in-the-room account of the pivotal six months in 1941 that turned the tide of World War II. He will be in conversation with his wife and co-writer, Oscie Thomas.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
"A vital, compelling story told brilliantly and beautifully by a master of dramatic narrative . . . No one does minute-by-minute history better than Evan Thomas.”—Jon Meacham
About the Book
In the summer of 1941, Winston Churchill was desperate. For two years, Britain had stood alone against Germany, heavily battered by the Blitz as another season of grinding war loomed. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the ally Churchill needed most, was coyly evading any commitment to join the war; Americans, FDR knew, weren't worried enough about the Axis to risk sending their sons overseas. Meanwhile, for an arrogant Adolf Hitler, whose war machine had already swept across Europe and now looked poised any day to take Moscow, the continent seemed all but won.
By late December, though, Churchill would be lighting the White House Christmas tree with Roosevelt as an open ally, while in Berlin, basic supplies would be running out in an omen of the years to come. In the course of a few months, the war's direction was critically, permanently reversed, a result of crucial strategic calls made by the Allies and of equally vital missteps by the Axis. Hitler's early advantage, once fumbled, would never be regained.
Placing us inside the span of a few months that would redefine the course of the war—as Churchill implores Roosevelt at a secret meeting in the Atlantic, as Hitler tries to parse German intelligence reports from D.C.—The Hour Strikes grants us intimate access to the men who would redefine a world.
About the Author
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