It can seem as though the Cold War division of Europe was inevitable. But Stalin was more open to a settlement on the continent than is assumed. In this powerful reassessment of the postwar order, Norman Naimark returns to the four years after WWII to illuminate European leaders' efforts to secure national sovereignty amid dominating powers.

Norman M. Naimark is the critically acclaimed author of Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, The Russians in Germany, and Stalin's Genocides. He is Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution and the Freeman-Spogli Institute. He received the Richard W. Lyman Award and Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University.