Lynne Olson

A major new history of World War II outlines the development of America's pivotal wartime alliance with England while focusing on the contributions played by Averell Harriman, Edward R. Murrow and John Gilbert Winant. By the author of the L.A. Times Book Prize finalist Troublesome Young Men.

The Americans who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

Citizens of London

Andrew John Kinney

Another of Lynne Olson's excellent books about the '30's and '40's. This one is about Gil Winant, Ed Murrow, and Averell Harriman, primarily. As with Those Angry Days and Last Hope Island, Olson brings out aspects of that period that are left out of most standard accounts. Roosevelt does not come off well in Olson's book, and the more I learn more about the war, the more I think FDR should not have been president after 1940; he was physically deteriorating steadily after about 1942. He certainly should not have run for president in 1944, and the situation the world inherited in eastern Europe was largely the result of FDR's increasing inability to work or comprehend information as he slid toward death in his last year.

Gil Winant, ambassador to the UK, was the best of us in the 1940's. It is a shame he is not remembered better in the US.

Citizens of London The Americans who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

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