The eagerly awaited final volume in Pulitzer Prize–winner Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy
It is the twentieth century’s unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his New York Times bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted the history of how the American-led coalition fought its way from North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle in western Europe.
D-day marked the commencement of the war’s final campaign, and Atkinson’s astonishingly fresh account of that enormous gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all of these historic moments come utterly alive. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at all levels, from presidents and prime ministers, from war-weary lieutenants to terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the awe-inspiring effort that led to Germany’s surrender.
With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Rick Atkinson’s remarkable accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that restored freedom to the West. His lively, lyric prose brings the vast theater of battle, from the beaches of Normandy to deep into Germany, brilliantly alive. It is hard to imagine a better history of the western front’s final phase.
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“A tapestryof fabulous richness and complexity… Atkinson is a master of what might becalled ‘pointillism history,’ assembling the small dots of pure color into a vivid,tumbling narrative…The Liberation Trilogy is a monumental achievement, about2,500 pages in all, densely researched but supremely readable.”
— New York Times Book Review
“A remarkable conclusion to his three parts on WWII…A fabulous book.”
— Tom Brokaw, New York Times bestselling author“Detailed in its research, unsparing in its judgments and confident in its prose…This trilogy—on which [Atkinson has] spent twelve years, twice as long as the war itself—may well be his masterpiece.”
— Time“A magnificent book…[Atkinson] is an absolute master of his material.”
— Wall Street Journal“Breathtaking, unforgettable…This volume is a literary triumph worthy of the military triumph it explores and explains.”
— Boston Globe“Monumental… As befits a journalist who knows his material inside and out, Atkinson can provide the incisive explanation to a complex situation or personage… A masterpiece of deep reporting and powerful storytelling.”
— Los Angeles Times“With great sensitivity, Atkinson conveys the horrible reality of what soldiers had to become to defeat Hitler’s Germany.”
— Washington Post“Great characters, vivid details…The final volume of Rick Atkinson’s ‘Liberation Trilogy’ proves again that few can re-tell a story as well as he.”
— USA Today“The same qualities that garnered Atkinson a Pulitzer Prize for An Army at Dawn—meticulous research married to masterful narrative—are apparent in The Guns at Last Light. The new book relates the oft-told (but never better) story of the war’s final year, from D-Day to the German surrender.”
— Chicago Tribune“A beautifully written, moving account of one of the most bittersweet chapters in modern history.”
— SmithsonianRick Atkinson, a former staff writer and senior editor at the Washington Post, is the highly acclaimed author of several books of military history. An Army at Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and The Guns at Last Light was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Among his many accolades and awards are the George Polk Award, the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize, the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award, the Axel Springer Prize, and the Henry Adams Prize, among others.
L. J. Ganser is a multiple Audie Award–winning narrator with over six hundred titles recorded to date. Prized for versatility, his work ranges from preschool books to crime noir thrillers, from astronomical adventures in both science and science fiction, to Arctic Circle high school basketball stories. He lives in New York City with his family and dog, Mars.