Following their breakout from Normandy in late June 1944, the Allies swept across northern France in pursuit of the German army. As they advanced, local forces in Paris began their own liberation, defying the occupying German troops. Charles de Gaulle, the leading figure of the Free French government, urged General Dwight Eisenhower to divert forces to liberate Paris. Neither man knew that the German commandant, Dietrich von Choltitz, dissembled and schemed to surrender the city to the Allies intact, defying Hitler’s orders to leave it a burning ruin. In THE LIBERATION OF PARIS, Jean Edward Smith puts this dramatic event in context, showing how the decision to free the city came at a heavy price: it slowed the Allied momentum and allowed the Germans to regroup.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, almost singlehandedly decided to invade Iraq. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. BUSH is a comprehensive evaluation of the Bush presidency --- including Guantanamo, Katrina, No Child Left Behind and other important topics --- that will surely surprise many readers.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Jean Edward Smith provides new insight into Dwight Eisenhower’s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur in Washington and the Philippines, his World War II generalship, and his presidency.