This magnificent volume by veteran European correspondent Don Cook is the first major biography of de Gaulle written by an American from an American perspective. Rich with new anecdotal material, it offers fresh evaluations and sheds new light on Europe’s most controversial and enigmatic general, politician, and statesman.

Arrogant, haughty, single-minded in war, politics, and his personal life, Charles de Gaulle ranks in many ways as the most powerful personality of an epoch blessed—or cursed—with powerful men. Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, Kennedy, and Khrushchev all locked horns with de Gaulle, and all eventually bowed to his wishes.

This exciting biography takes full measure of the man and his times, when great soldiers and statesmen fought center stage and the fate of the world hung in the balance.