“Eight Days at Yalta: How Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World”, by Diana Preston ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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The Yalta conference, in February 1945, comprised what is probably the most important eight-day period in modern history. The leaders of the three principal nations of the Allied alliance opposing the Axis powers – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin – met in the Black Sea resort city of Yalta to confer on subjects ranging from the conduct of the final campaigns against Nazi Germany to the configuration of Poland post-World War II; they also wrangled over the settlement of many other issues which would arise in the aftermath of the war, effectively shaping the world of the second half of the 20th century, and beyond, in the process.

Diana Preston’s account of the conference, and its aftermath, is thoroughly researched and extremely well-written. The book includes vivid descriptions of the environs – the war-ravaged Black Sea resort of Yalta – and the personalities: FDR, ravaged by a multitude of physical ailments and increasingly unwell; Churchill, voluble, irascible, and as adamant as ever to preserve the British Empire; and Stalin, charming on the surface, but resolute in his desire to maintain, and expand, Soviet influence in the postwar world.

Equally precise in its accounting of the big picture and the small details of the conference, “Eight Days at Yalta” is an important account of one of the most significant weeks in modern history.

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