A panorama of the years leading up to World War II. Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military chiefs to make clear the need for an aggressive war in Eastern Europe.

Some generals are uneasy with the Führer's grand plan, but these dissenters are forced one by one to fall silent. The path to the most destructive conflict in history has begun.

Benjamin Carter Hett leads us behind the scenes in Berlin, London, Moscow, and Washington, illuminating the troubled political situation in each country during a time when the challenges posed by the German dictator were intensifying.

He reveals how, through delays and hesitations, the anti-Nazi forces inside and outside Germany eventually recognized the threat that Hitler posed to European civilization itself and understood how they needed to confront him.

And he vividly brings to life the extreme conditions in which governments and systems found themselves, while personalities of unprecedented magnitude fought to steer the course of history to their advantage.

As in The Death of Democracy, his renowned work on the fall of the Weimar Republic, Hett draws on sources and recently declassified documents, shedding new light not only on the past but also on the present, demonstrating how those long-ago events are connected to our own lives and the critical issues of our time.