 An
Army at Dawn
The War in North Africa, 1942-1943
Winner
of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for History
Winner of the 2002 AHF Distinguished Writing Award
for U.S. Army History 1899-2002
In the first volume of a remarkable trilogy, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick
Atkinson provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is an epic
story of courage and calamity, of miscalculation and enduring triumph. Now,
sixty years after America joined this titanic struggle, 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.
Atkinson's narrative begins on the eve of Operation TORCH, the daring
amphibious invasion of Morocco and Algeria. After three days of hard fighting
against the French, American and British troops push deeper into North Africa.
But the confidence gained after several early victories soon wanes; once Allied
forces engage the Germans, it becomes apparent that they have more than met
their match. Casualties mount rapidly, battle plans prove ineffectual, and hope
for a quick and decisive victory evaporates. The Allies -- particularly the
Americans -- discover that they are woefully unprepared to fight and win this
war, in part due to lack of experience, in part due to an unwillingness to pay
the necessary price in blood. North Africa then becomes a proving ground: it is
here that American officers learn how to lead, here that soldiers learn how to
hate, here that an entire army learns what it will take vanquish a formidable
enemy.
Most of the West's great battle captains emerged in North Africa, including
men whose names remain familiar generations later -- Eisenhower, Patton,
Bradley, and Montgomery. Atkinson brings these commanders and others vividly to
life, along with enemy generals such as Rommel and Kesselring. He also takes us
right to the front lines of every major battle -- from Oran to Kasserine to
Tunis -- and his gripping accounts of soldiers fighting and dying makes the war
horrifyingly real. Gradually, we come to understand the profound accomplishments
of this bloody campaign. In North Africa, the Allied coalition came into its
own, the enemy forever lost the initiative, and the United States -- for the
first time -- began to act like a great power.
Even as he weaves a compelling narrative of a heroic victory, Atkinson casts
a clear eye on the dark tragedies that haunt every war. The first volume of the
Liberation Trilogy, An Army At Dawn is history of the highest order --
brilliantly researched, rich with new material and surprising insights, the
deeply human story of a monumental battle for the future of civilization.
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Paperback
736 pages
Two 16-page b&w inserts, 18 maps, endpapers
$16.00US/$23.95CAN
Pub Date: October 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-7448-1
Also available in hardcover
681 pages
Two 16-page b&w inserts, 18 maps
$30.00US/$44.95CAN
Pub Date: October 2002
ISBN: 0-8050-6288-2
Also available in
Simon & Schuster Audio
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