In early November 1942, it seemed that the Axis powers could still win; by the end of the month, everyone realized that losing was a matter of time. In between came El Alamein, Guadalcanal, the landing in French-occupied North Africa, the Japanese withdrawal from Kokoda in Papua New Guinea, and of course the encirclement of the German army by the Soviets at Stalingrad. It was only one month, but perhaps the most significant of the twentieth century, when everything hung by a thread. Peter Englund's primary concern is not to offer another military history of the war "from the top down," but to understand it as a deeply human experience. In the book, the narrative is given to very different people, not just soldiers. For example, besides a Soviet infantryman at Stalingrad, an American pilot at Guadalcanal, an Italian truck driver in the North African desert, a partisan in the forests of Belarus, and a gunner in a British Lancaster bomber, we also have a twelve-year-old girl in Shanghai, a freshman student in Paris, a housewife in Long Island, a Chinese castaway, a prisoner in Treblinka, and a Korean woman in a Japanese "comfort station" in Mandalay. The book is entirely based on diaries, letters, and memoirs of people who were there. Rich material that comes to life in a deeply moving and wonderfully enlightening way from the pen of Peter Englund. TRANSLATED INTO MORE THAN 15 LANGUAGES