Includes bibliographical references (pages 705-715) and index.

1945 is a monumental, multi-dimensional history of the end of World War II. Dallas narrates in meticulous detail the conflicts, contradictions, motives, and counter-motives that marked the end of the greatest military conflict in modern history and established lasting patterns of deceit, uncertainty, and distrust out of which the Cold War was born.
Beginning with the siege of Berlin, Dallas describes in simple human terms the interactions of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Zhukov, Truman, de Gaulle, Macmillan, along with others relatively unknown, vividly portraying the interpenetration of the daily with the epochal, the obscure with the great political events taking place on the world stage. A grand narrative of diplomatic mistakes, military accidents, and the chaos inherent in human affairs,1945 draws the reader into a profound reflection on the basic shaping forces of history, the arbitrary ways we objectify its conflicts, and the subtle, almost invisible filaments that enmesh public events with private passions.