Military historian Len Deighton called The Second World War and its Aftermath ‘a masterpiece’. From the major campaigns in the East and West – the Blitzkrieg, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the fray – to detailed portraits of the five ‘War Lords’ – Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt – who governed the course of the conflict, Taylor’s account is always eye-opening. Nations at war, and the different cultures that created the fighting men and women come under his peerless scrutiny; at peace both leaders and civilians faced an uncertain future as they began to rebuild their shattered world.