The liberation of Europe & the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage & enduring triumph of calamity & miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 & 1943. Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942 An Army at Dawn follows the British & American armies as they fight the French in Morocco & Algeria & then take on the Germans & Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle an inexperienced & sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower Patton Bradley Montgomery & Rommel.