An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa.

The 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, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.

1110948393
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa.

The 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, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.

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An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)

by Rick Atkinson
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1)

by Rick Atkinson

Paperback(First Edition)

$26.99 
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Overview

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa.

The 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, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780805087246
Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 05/15/2007
Series: Liberation Trilogy Series , #1
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 736
Sales rank: 74,727
Product dimensions: 8.52(w) x 11.08(h) x 1.41(d)

About the Author

Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy—An Army at Dawn (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History), The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light—as well as The Long Gray Line and other books. His many additional awards include a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, a George Polk Award, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award. A former staff writer and senior editor at The Washington Post, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Read an Excerpt

Twenty-seven acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just 2,841 bone-white marble markers, two feet high and arrayed in ranks as straight as gunshots. Only the chiseled names and dates of death suggest singularity. Four sets of brothers lie side by side. Some 240 stones are inscribed with thirteen of the saddest words in our language: "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."

The stones are devoid of epitaphs, parting endearments, even dates of birth. But visitors familiar with the American and British invasion of North Africa in November 1942, and the subsequent seven-month struggle to expel the Axis powers there, can make reasonable conjectures. We can surmise that Willett H. Wallace, a private first-class in the 26th Infantry Regiment who died on November 9, 1942, was killed at St. Cloud, Algeria, during the three days of hard fighting against the French. And Jacob Feinstein, a sergeant from Maryland in the 135th Infantry who died on April 29, 1943, no doubt passed during the epic battle for Hill 609, where the American Army came of age.

Table of Contents

List of Mapsxvi
Map Legendxvii
Allied Chain of Commandxix
Prologue1
Part 1
1.Passage21
A Meeting with the Dutchman21
Gathering the Ships33
Rendezvous at Cherchel42
On the Knees of the Gods49
A Man Must Believe in His Luck57
2.Landing69
"In the Night, All Cats Are Grey"69
In Barbary78
Villain87
To the Last Man91
"Glory Enough for Us All"103
3.Beachhead116
A Sword in Algiers116
A Blue Flag over Oran124
"An Orgy of Disorder"130
Battle for the Kasbah141
"It's All Over for Now"148
Part 2
4.Pushing East163
"We Live in Tragic Hours"163
A Cold Country with a Hot Sun167
Medjez-el-Bab178
Fat Geese on a Pond187
5.Primus in Carthago194
"Go for the Swine with a Blithe Heart"194
"The Dead Salute the Gods"201
"Jerry Is Counterattacking!"217
6.A Country of Defiles237
Longstop237
"They Shot the Little Son of a Bitch"250
"This Is the Hand of God"256
Part 3
7.Casablanca265
The Ice-Cream Front265
Speedy Valley270
"The Touch of the World"280
The Sinners' Concourse295
8.A Bits and Pieces War301
"Goats Set Out to Lure a Tiger"301
"This Can't Happen to Us"312
"The Mortal Dangers That Beset Us"317
"A Good Night for a Mass Murder"327
9.Kasserine339
A Hostile Debouchment339
None Returned348
"Sometimes That Is Not Good Enough"353
"This Place Is Too Hot"366
"Order, Counter-order, and Disorder"373
"Lay Roughly on the Tanks"382
Part 4
10.The World We Knew Is a Long Time Dead395
Vigil in Red Oak395
"We Know There'll Be Troubles of Every Sort"398
"One Needs Luck in War"406
"The Devil Is Come Down"416
11.Over the Top431
"Give Them Some Steel!"431
"Search Your Soul"444
Night Closes Down453
"I Had a Plan ... Now I Have None"464
12.The Inner Keep480
Hell's Corner480
Hammering Home the Cork490
"Count Your Children Now, Adolf!"499
Tunisgrad513
Epilogue530
Notes543
Sources626
Acknowledgments655
Index660
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