No Less Than Victory

No Less Than Victory

With his bestselling novels, The Rising Tide and The Steel Wave, master storyteller Jeff Shaara painted two unforgettable portraits of World War II, taking us from the epic clashes between Germany and the Allies in the North African desert in 1942-43 to the beginning of the assault on Fortress Europe that began with D-Day in 1944. No Less Than Victory is the crowning achievement in Shaara’s soaring trilogy, revealing the European war’s unforgettable and harrowing final act.

After the resounding success of the Normandy invasion, the Allied commanders are buoyantly confident that the war in Europe will be over in a matter of weeks, and that Hitler and his battered army have no other option than surrender. But despite the advice of his best military minds, the Führer will hear no talk of defeat. In mid-December, 1944, the Germans launch a desperate and ruthless counteroffensive in the Ardennes forest, utterly surprising the unprepared Americans who stand in their way. Through the frigid snows of the mountainous terrain, German tanks and infantry struggle to realize Hitler’s goal: divide the Allied armies and capture the vital port at Antwerp, Belgium. The attack succeeds in opening up a wide gap in the American lines, and for days, chaos and bewilderment reign in the Allied command. Thus begins the Battle of the Bulge, the last gasp by Hitler’s forces—an epic battle that becomes a horrific slugging match that sees some of the most brutal fighting of the war. As American commanders respond to the stunning challenge, the German spear is finally blunted.

Though some cooler heads in the Nazi inner circle continue to struggle to secure Germany’s postwar future, the Führer—megalomaniacal even in the face of certain disaster—makes it clear that he is fighting to the end. He will spare nothing, not even German lives, to preserve his twisted vision of a “Thousand-Year Reich.” But in May, 1945, the German army collapses at last, and with Russian troops closing in, Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker. As the Americans sweep through the German countryside, they unexpectedly encounter the worst of Hitler’s crimes, the concentration camps, and young GIs find themselves absorbing firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust.

Presenting his riveting account through the eyes of Eisenhower and Patton and the young GIs who struggle face-to-face with their enemy, and through the eyes of Germany’s old soldier, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Hitler’s golden boy, Albert Speer, Jeff Shaara carries the reader on a journey that defines the spirit of the soldier and the horror of a madman’s dreams. No Less Than Victory further solidifies Shaara’s reputation as this era’s most accomplished author of historical military fiction.

Hardcover: 464 pages

Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc./Random House ( November 03, 2009 )

Item #: 77-2611

ISBN: 9780345497925

Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 x 1.13 inches

Product Weight: 18.0 ounces