Author: Rick Atkinson File Type: epub In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North AfricaThe liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and 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 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and 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, and Rommel.Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinsons narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.__Amazon.com ReviewPlease note This ebook edition does not contain photos that appeared in the print edition. In An Army at Dawn, , a comprehensive look at the 1942-1943 Allied invasion of North Africa, author Rick Atkinson posits that the campaign was, along with the battles of Stalingrad and Midway, where the Axis ... forever lost the initiative and the fable of 3rd Reich invincibility was dissolved. Additionally, it forestalled a premature and potentially disastrous cross- channel invasion of France and served as a grueling testing ground for an as-yet inexperienced American army. Lastly, by relegating Great Britain to what Atkinson calls the status of junior partner in the war effort, North Africa marked the beginning of American geopolitical hegemony. Although his prose is occasionally overwrought, Atkinsons account is a superior one, an agile, well-informed mix of informed strategic overview and intimate battlefield-and-barracks anecdotes. (Tobacco-starved soldiers took to smoking cigarettes made of toilet paper and eucalyptus leaves.) Especially interesting are Atkinsons straightforward accounts of the many feuds, tiffs and spats among British and American commanders, politicians, and strategists and his honest assessments of their--and their soldiers--performance and behavior, for better and for worse. This is an engrossing, extremely accessible account of a grim and too-often overlooked military campaign. --H. OBillovichFrom Publishers Weekly Atkinson won a Pulitzer Prize during his time as a journalist and editor at the Washington Post and is the author of The Long Gray Line The American Journey of West Points Class of 1966 and of Crusade The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. In contrast to Crusades illustrations of technomastery, this book depicts the U.S. Armys introduction to modern war. The Tunisian campaign, Atkinson shows, was undertaken by an American army lacking in training and experience alongside a British army whose primary experience had been of defeat. Green units panicked, abandoning wounded and weapons. Clashes between and within the Allies seemed at times to overshadow the battles with the Axis. Atkinsons most telling example is the relationship of II Corps commander George Patton and his subordinate, 1st Armored Divisions Orlando Ward. The latter was a decent person and capable enough commander, but he lacked the final spark of ruthlessness that takes a division forward in the face of heavy casualties and high obstacles. With Dwight Eisenhowers approval, Patton fired him. The result was what Josef Goebbels called a second Stalingrad after Tunisia, the tide of war rolled one way toward Berlin. Atkinsons visceral sympathies lie with Ward his subtext from earlier books remains unaltered in war, they send for the hard men. Despite diction that occasionally lapses into the melodramatic, general readers and specialists alike will find worthwhile fare in this intellectually convincing and emotionally compelling narrative. 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.