"Masterly. . . . Roberts's portrait of the relationship between the
four men who made Allied strategy through the war years is a triumph of
vivid description, telling anecdotes, and informed analysis." --Max
Hastings, The New York Review of Books
An epic joint biography, Masters and Commanders explores the degree to
which the course of the Second World War turned on the relationships and
temperaments of four of the strongest personalities of the twentieth
century: political masters Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the commanders of their armed forces, General Sir Alan Brooke and
General George C. Marshall.
Each was exceptionally tough-willed and strong-minded, and each was
certain that only he knew best how to win the war. Andrew Roberts,
"Britain's finest contemporary military historian" (The Economist),
traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm,
the often-explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations, and he helps
us to appreciate the motives and imperatives of these key leaders as
they worked tirelessly in the monumental struggle to destroy Nazism.