The award-winning Joakim Kepner unfolds the chronicle of the true origin of World War II. Through archival sources and personal testimonies from the involved countries – including that of Alki Zei for Greece – he analyzes the important and irrevocable decisions and choices of 1941, a pivotal year for the fate of millions of people.

Kepner speaks of war as a means of politics and of politics in the context of a war where there was no slightest desire for reconciliation and no compromise whatsoever. He deals with the politicians who decided and directed it; with the soldiers who conducted it; with the people it shattered like a flaming steamroller; he addresses the brutality and despair, as well as the courage and resistance.

He also deals with the belated, almost fateful delayed realization of the free world, a world based on moral foundations, which today we largely take for granted. However, it is not a given. It is a historic unprecedented achievement, and 1941 marks the year when it regained its voice, its dignity, and its strength.

Kepner manages to reach the heart of the events, and indeed in half the pages that other authors require.