'History at its scintillating best ... hard-hitting, revelatory and superbly researched' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
'A rare achievement ... sure to become an instant classic' John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University
This gripping book dramatizes the extraordinarily compressed and terrifying period between the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war on the United States. These five days transformed much of the world and have shaped our own experience ever since.
Simms and Laderman's aim in the book is to show how this agonizing period had no inevitability about it and that innumerable outcomes were possible. Key leaders around the world were taking decisions with often poor and confused information, under overwhelming pressure and knowing that they could be facing personal and national disaster. And yet, there were also long-standing assumptions that shaped these decisions, both consciously and unconsciously.
Hitler's American Gamble is a superb work of history, both as an explanation for the course taken by the Second World War and as a study in statecraft and political choices.
"Absorbing ... Simms and Laderman give us a visceral sense of these events as they unfolded, in real time, with historical actors not always quite sure what was happening - a dimension of history that is both crucial and fiendishly difficult to recover." - New York Times Book Review
"An extraordinary reconstruction of the fateful week following Pearl Harbor." - Guardian
"A very important book ... Truly eye-opening, myth-busting history." - Aspects of History
"Offers fine, well-researched insights into the psyches of leaders who made decisions that changed the course of world history ... For readers seeking a deeper understanding of the realpolitik that drove Germany to war against America, Hitler's American Gamble offers an outstanding narrative." - World War 2 Magazine
"The authors effectively prove their thesis in a key volume for World War II history collections." - Library Journal
