Fateful Choices

Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-41 offers a penetrating insight into a series of momentous political decisions that shaped the course of the Second World War.

The hurricane of events that marked the opening of the Second World War meant that anything could happen. For the aggressors there was no limit to their ambitions; for their victims a new Dark Age beckoned. Over the next few months their fates would be determined.

In Fateful Choices Ian Kershaw re-creates the ten critical decisions taken between May 1940, when Britain chose not to surrender, and December 1941, when Hitler decided to destroy Europe's Jews, showing how these choices would recast the entire course of history.

'Powerfully argued ... important ... this book actually alters our perspective of the Second World War'
Andrew Roberts

'This fascinating, closely-argued book adds to our understanding of a terrible war'
Alan Massie

'A compelling re-examination of the conflict ... Kershaw displays here those same qualities of scholarly rigour, careful argument and sound judgement that he brought to bear so successfully in his life of Hitler'
Richard Overy

'A splendidly lucid and impeccably argued exposition of the greatest political decisions of the Second World War'
Max Hastings

'How fortunate that it is Ian Kershaw bringing his immense knowledge and clarity of thought to the task ... brilliantly explained ... an immensely wise book'
Anthony Beevor

Ian Kershaw (b. 1943) was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield from 1989-2008, and is one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler. His books include The 'Hitler Myth', his two volume biography Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941. He was knighted in 2002.