Iain MacGregor has been an editor and publisher of nonfiction for over twenty-five years. He is the author of The Lighthouse of Stalingrad and Checkpoint Charlie. As a history student he visited the Baltic and the Soviet Union in the early 1980s and has been captivated by Soviet history ever since. He has published books on every aspect of the Second World War on the Eastern Front 1941-45 and has visited archives in Leningrad, Moscow, and Volgograd. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Spectator and BBC History Magazine. He lives with his wife and two children in London.
"Carefully researched . . . This valuable addition to the body of
work about Stalingrad goes a long way toward righting the balance
between myth and reality. . . . compelling." --Wall Street Journal
"MacGregor retells [this story] with impressive skill and relish .
. . closely researched and enormously engaging." --Sunday Times
(UK) "Splendid. . . . MacGregor writes with great fluency and
narrative drive, and his account of the context to the battle and
the complexity of its fraught swings of fortune and misfortune is
compellingly terse." --New Statesman (UK) "Closely researched and
engagingly written, MacGregor's wonderful book shines important new
light on the most horrific, and arguably the most important, battle
of the 20th century. It is a story of 'backs to the wall' defence
of the Motherland that modern Russians, with the boot now on the
other foot, would do well to study." --Telegraph (UK) "Brisk and
dramatic . . . meticulous yet action-packed, this will thrill WWII
buffs." --Publishers Weekly "A superb evocation: MacGregor strips
away the layers of myth--using a powerful array of sources--and
takes us to the brutal heart of this pivotal battle." --Michael K.
Jones, author of Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE LIGHTHOUSE OF STALINGRAD "The battle makes
for a compelling account, and MacGregor effectively uses primary
sources, including the archived personal stories of Soviet veterans
and the unpublished memoir of German officer Friedrich Roske, who
comes fully alive in these pages." --Kirkus Reviews "The Lighthouse
of Stalingrad is the finest of military history, utterly riveting,
based on revelatory and superb research, and a heart-rending
account of arguably the most impactful battle to defeat Nazism in
WWII. A wonderful and important and timely book." --Alexander
Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The Bedford Boys "In
the midst of Moscow's bloody war on Ukraine, with Putin invoking
'glorious victories' of World War II to inspire his country, Iain
MacGregor's vivid, dramatic, day-by-day account reminds us that the
awful reality of Stalingrad for soldiers on both sides was: 'The
lucky ones bled, froze or starved to death in temporary field
hospitals in bunkers or cellars.'" --William Taubman, Pulitzer
prize-winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era "Stunning.
History at its very best: a blend of impeccably researched
scholarship, genuinely revelatory primary sources, and a
beautifully written narrative. The grim brutality of the conditions
in which the men of both sides fought--and died--is brought back to
life with immense clarity; one can almost smell the smoke and
stench of death. Iain MacGregor's superb book is the most
compellingly readable account yet written of this iconic, notorious
battle." --James Holland, author of Normandy '44: D-Day and the
Battle for France "If you thought you knew all about the Battle of
Stalingrad, Iain Macgregor' s gripping account will put you right.
Drawing on a remarkable range of diaries, letters and memoirs, many
of which have never been published before, he provides an
illuminating, authoritative and unforgettable insight into the
decisive days of that most terrible struggle on the banks of the
Volga." --Jonathan Dimbleby, BBC broadcaster and Sunday Times
bestselling author of Barbarossa: How Hitler Lost the War "If you
believe there is nothing fresh to be written about the most
decisive battle of the Second World War, Iain MacGregor's The
Lighthouse of Stalingrad will be something of a revelation. . . .
The sheer brutal intimacy of his descriptions of this fighting are
extraordinary. . . . This is a chilling, vivid account that helps
to explain not just the Third Reich's defeat at Stalingrad but also
the myths that persist in Russia to this day--for better and, most
recently, for worse." --Frederick Taylor, author of Dresden:
Tuesday 15th February 1945
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