The Day of Battle

Resumen del libro

In An Army at Dawn winner of the Pulitzer Prize Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.

The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.

Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With The Day of Battle, Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history's most compelling military campaigns.

Biografía del autor

Rick Atkinson (1952) fue redactor y más tarde editor en The Washington Post durante más de veinte años, y sus trabajos han merecido cuatro premios Pulitzer por su labor histórica y periodística. Su reconocimiento internacional ha venido especialmente por los dos primeros volúmenes de la Trilogía de la Liberación, Un ejército al amanecer. La guerra en el Norte de Africa, 1942-1943 (Crítica, 2004) -ganador del premio Pulitzer y que fue calificado por The Wall Street Journal como "el mejor libro sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial desde los clásicos de Cornelius Ryan El día más largo y Un puente lejano" - y El día de la batalla. La Guerra en Sicilia y en Italia, 1943-44 (Crítica, 2008). En 2014 publica el tercer volumen de la trilogía: Los cañones del atardecer.