Rusty barbed wire and distant AM radio-Montana hid my secrets for almost fifty years. Then a young reporter arrived in a beat-up Impala. Her assignment, WWII Homecoming Memories, had uncovered a puzzling lead about several dead men last seen riding a train with a red-headed nurse. I could have lied, but she reminded me of myself at that age so I rolled a cigarette and told her all of it. She spilled coffee on my table. Her research started in New York. In choosing soldiers to profile, she included her hometown and discovered her great uncle, reported MIA in 1944, bought a train ticket to Browning, Montana, three months after they buried his empty casket. Impossible, yet on two consecutive pages, she counted 14 tickets to Browning-a village on the Blackfeet Reservation. The National Archives showed that 13 of those men shared the same distinct status: Missing in Action. I know where those passengers are. Southwest of Browning, where the plains run into the Rockies, stands a church. Once it represented everything good in our country, a tiny church built in 1913 by a young man for his wedding. Only four people attended the bride's funeral in 1918. Her twin babies slept through the service. Eight months earlier her husband marched into World War I and he never returned. My story starts and ends at that little church, but in between, the darkest hours of mankind churned through Europe. Some of that darkness found its way to Montana. As bad as it ended, I wondered if the Lord forgives murder. As it turns out, sometimes yes, sometimes definitely no.

A “gripping [and] splendidly readable” portrait of the battle within the British War Cabinet—and Churchill’s eventual victory—as Hitler’s shadow loomed (The Boston Globe). From May 24 to May 28, 1940, members of Britain’s War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue what became known as the Second World War. In this magisterial work, John Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical events at 10 Downing Street, where Winston Churchill and his cabinet painfully considered their responsibilities. With the unfolding of the disaster at Dunkirk, and Churchill being in office for just two weeks and treated with derision by many, he did not have an easy time making his case—but the people of Britain were increasingly on his side, and he would prevail. This compelling narrative, a Washington Post bestseller, is the first to convey the drama and world-changing importance of those days. “[A] fascinating work of historical reconstruction.”—The Wall Street Journal “Eminent historian Lukacs delivers the crown jewel to his long and distinguished career.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A must for every World War II buff.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer “Superb…can be compared to such classics as Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Last Days of Hitler and Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August.”—Harper’s Magazine

Describes the world that would have existed in 1945 if Adolf Hitler had not declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor.