A tortured, vengeful man, whose artist wife died in heartbreaking circumstances two years before World War II, Monty knew but one ambition: to prove himself as military teacher and commander.

In the course of this authoritative narrative, we see Monty both at his best and at his worst: brilliant and boastful, compassionate and cruel, farsighted and yet sometimes petty and obnoxious. It is a mesmerizing portrait not only of great leadership but also of the trials of war and coalition tensions, as, after Alamein, British and American generals jostle for their place in the Allied sun. Monty's sheer professionalism awes us - as does his arrogance and conceit. A hero to his troops, he becomes a thorn in the side of his allies and superiors, reducing Eisenhower to the point of resignation as Supreme Commander and Churchill to despair.

Yet this is, too, the inside story of World War II as it was waged on the field, with Monty battling not only against the Germans in north Africa, Sicily, Italy, and northwest Europe, but also with an Allied high command he considered to be an amateur and out of touch. Never before has the story of the planning and execution of the D-Day landings been so candidly told, nor that of the Normandy campaign, the tragedy at Arnhem, the shocking defeat in the Ardennes, and the inside account of the Allied failure to seize Berlin while it was within our grasp.