From the bestselling author of One Minute to Midnight" this is the riveting story of the last six months of World War II when the hopeful Allied situation inspired by the Yalta Conference descended into the open conflict that would lead to the Cold War. When FDR Winston Churchill & Josef Stalin gathered outside the Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945 they had Hitlers armies on the run & victory was just a matter of time. Their mission was to forge the decisions that would shape the postwar world & above all to divide up Europe between Soviet & Western influence. These men had been fighting side by side for nearly four years but the cracks in their alliance were emerging; even before the Second World War ended another conflict was beginning. " Six Months" captures this turning point of the twentieth century re-creating the steady breakdown in relations between powers. While the Berlin airlift & the Iron Curtain would not arrive for three years by August 1945 the West & the Soviet Union were firmly on the path to a Cold War. Michael Dobbs brilliantly renders the personalities & geopolitics that drove this descent illuminating the aims & frustrations of the key leaders. This is a vivid story of power personalities & national interests competing at a crucial moment in history."