A dual biography of the two men who led their nations through the crucible of World War II. In 1940, two adversaries faced each other across the English Channel, both larger than life, with the destiny of civilization at stake. There could have been no greater contrast in breeding, upbringing, character, or experience. Winston Churchill was superhumanly bold and imaginative, a mythical hero who belongs to legend as much as reality. Adolf Hitler, an adventurer with uncanny political acumen and infinite reserves of resolve, had nerves of steel and an indomitable will. These two men are the subject of General John Strawson's dual biography. How did they set about conducting their grand strategic affairs for the war that spanned the globe? After tracing Hitler's early rise to power and Churchill's youthful political and military accomplishments before and during the Great War, Strawson, a noted military historian, takes the reader to the battlefields of Europe and North Africa as well as to Churchill's war cabinet meetings and Hitler's headquarters. He contrasts both men revealingly in their moments of defeat and victory as he retells the drama of World War II and its changing fortunes.