Joseph E. Persico was een vooraanstaand historicus wiens werken zich verdiepten in cruciale momenten en figuren van de 20e eeuw. Zijn schrijfstijl werd gekenmerkt door diepgaand archiefonderzoek en een gedetailleerde weergave van gebeurtenissen. Persico onderzocht vaak de donkerdere kanten van conflicten en politieke intriges, waarbij hij licht wierp op minder bekende facetten van oorlogvoering en processen na de oorlog. Zijn verhalen worden geprezen om hun nauwkeurigheid en meeslepende stijl, die lezers naar het hart van historische gebeurtenissen trekt.
Colin Powell writes of his anxieties and difficulties as well as the triumphs that marked his rise to four-star US General, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mastermind of Desert Storm, and now the man many Americans would like to draft as President.
Profiles the life and career of Colin L. Powell.
Armistice Day, 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax
The story of the day on which World War I, the war to end all wars, ended. Using military archives and public records, along with journals and diaries, the book will weave together the eleventh hour experiences of the famous, such as Lloyd George, President Woodrow Wilson, Field Marshall Haig and General Pershing. But more dominantly, it will deal with the ordinary men in the trenches, unsung and unremembered, the British Tommies, French Poilus, American Doughboys and German Feldgrau. Where, for example, was the Austrian corporal, Adolf Hitler, on that day? Four days before the War's end, with peace talks already underway, the beaten Germans propose an interim ceasefire to spare lives. However, the French Allied Commander, General Ferdinand Foch, refuses. Hostilities will not cease, Foch insists, before the appointed hour of the Armistice. Thus, even on the last day, the Allies are still launching full scale offenses and both sides bombard each other until the final minute of the agreed ceasefire, 11am, November 11, 1918. The last hours pulsate with tension as men in the trenches, airmen in the sky and sailors at sea hope to escape the melancholy distinction of being the last to die in the War.