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Summary
Summary
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of miscalculation and incomparable courage, of calamity and enduring triumph. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson focuses on 1942 and 1943, showing how central the great drama that unfolded in North Africa was to the ultimate victory of the Allied powers and to America's understanding of itself.
Opening with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algiers, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and often poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but flawed commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.
Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and fresh insights, Atkinson's vivid narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.
Author Notes
Rick Atkinson holds a master of arts degree in English literature from the University of Chicago and is a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and military historian
Atkinson is the author of the highly-acclaimed Liberation Trilogy, The Long Gray Line, In the Company of Soldiers and Crusade. Atkinson received the Pulitzer Prize for the first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. The second volume, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, drew praise as well.
Atkinson also received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting; and the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for public service, awarded to the Washington Post for a series of investigative articles directed and edited by Atkinson on shootings by the District of Columbia police department. He is winner of the 1989 George Polk Award for national reporting, the 2003 Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award, the 2007 Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense, and the 2010 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Atkinson has served as the Gen. Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Army War College. In 2014 his title The Guns at Last Light made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Table of Contents
| List of Maps | p. xvi |
| Map Legend | p. xvii |
| Allied Chain of Command | p. xix |
| Prologue | p. 1 |
| Part 1 | |
| 1. Passage | p. 21 |
| A Meeting with the Dutchman | p. 21 |
| Gathering the Ships | p. 33 |
| Rendezvous at Cherchel | p. 42 |
| On the Knees of the Gods | p. 49 |
| A Man Must Believe in His Luck | p. 57 |
| 2. Landing | p. 69 |
| "In the Night, All Cats Are Grey" | p. 69 |
| In Barbary | p. 78 |
| Villain | p. 87 |
| To the Last Man | p. 91 |
| "Glory Enough for Us All" | p. 103 |
| 3. Beachhead | p. 116 |
| A Sword in Algiers | p. 116 |
| A Blue Flag over Oran | p. 124 |
| "An Orgy of Disorder" | p. 130 |
| Battle for the Kasbah | p. 141 |
| "It's All Over for Now" | p. 148 |
| Part 2 | |
| 4. Pushing East | p. 163 |
| "We Live in Tragic Hours" | p. 163 |
| A Cold Country with a Hot Sun | p. 167 |
| Medjez-el-Bab | p. 178 |
| Fat Geese on a Pond | p. 187 |
| 5. Primus in Carthago | p. 194 |
| "Go for the Swine with a Blithe Heart" | p. 194 |
| "The Dead Salute the Gods" | p. 201 |
| "Jerry Is Counterattacking!" | p. 217 |
| 6. A Country of Defiles | p. 237 |
| Longstop | p. 237 |
| "They Shot the Little Son of a Bitch" | p. 250 |
| "This Is the Hand of God" | p. 256 |
| Part 3 | |
| 7. Casablanca | p. 265 |
| The Ice-Cream Front | p. 265 |
| Speedy Valley | p. 270 |
| "The Touch of the World" | p. 280 |
| The Sinners' Concourse | p. 295 |
| 8. A Bits and Pieces War | p. 301 |
| "Goats Set Out to Lure a Tiger" | p. 301 |
| "This Can't Happen to Us" | p. 312 |
| "The Mortal Dangers That Beset Us" | p. 317 |
| "A Good Night for a Mass Murder" | p. 327 |
| 9. Kasserine | p. 339 |
| A Hostile Debouchment | p. 339 |
| None Returned | p. 348 |
| "Sometimes That Is Not Good Enough" | p. 353 |
| "This Place Is Too Hot" | p. 366 |
| "Order, Counter-order, and Disorder" | p. 373 |
| "Lay Roughly on the Tanks" | p. 382 |
| Part 4 | |
| 10. The World We Knew Is a Long Time Dead | p. 395 |
| Vigil in Red Oak | p. 395 |
| "We Know There'll Be Troubles of Every Sort" | p. 398 |
| "One Needs Luck in War" | p. 406 |
| "The Devil Is Come Down" | p. 416 |
| 11. Over the Top | p. 431 |
| "Give Them Some Steel!" | p. 431 |
| "Search Your Soul" | p. 444 |
| Night Closes Down | p. 453 |
| "I Had a Plan ... Now I Have None" | p. 464 |
| 12. The Inner Keep | p. 480 |
| Hell's Corner | p. 480 |
| Hammering Home the Cork | p. 490 |
| "Count Your Children Now, Adolf!" | p. 499 |
| Tunisgrad | p. 513 |
| Epilogue | p. 530 |
| Notes | p. 543 |
| Sources | p. 626 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 655 |
| Index | p. 660 |