Spheres of Influence

The war within the war was the struggle between Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin over the shape of the world that would follow the Second World War. That delicate diplomacy is spelt out in this brilliant reinterpretation of the negotiations that divided Europe and laid the foundations of the Cold War. Lloyd Gardner begins his story not with the outbreak of war but with the British attempt to appease Hitler at Munich in 1938. Here, the author argues, were the roots of the territorial agreements that culminated in Yalta - the 'spheres of influence' which the Americans sought to avoid as the Old World curse on the possibilities of a freer and more liberal world economy. Using the most recently opened archives, including those from Soviet Russia, the author captures the heady atmosphere of these momentous events in deft glimpses of the major personalities and a persuasive analysis of the course of events. He shows how Roosevelt tried to avoid the partition of Europe that Churchill and Stalin wanted, but ultimately settled for it, in the hope of keeping the Allies together to make a more lasting peace. Playing for time, Roosevelt ran out of it.
The result was the Cold War, which may have been preferable to a Third World War.