Cassino '44

James Holland is now our foremost authority on the Italian campaign. He knows the ground intimately and expertly. In this gripping, beautifully written book, Holland breathes fresh life into the grim story of Cassino. Told from the perspectives of all the participants, packed with new insights and quality scholarship, Cassino 1944 makes a major contribution to our understanding of the fighting in Italy. Highest recommendation! – John C. McManus, PhD, author of To the End of the Earth: The U.S. Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945James Holland has given us another gripping historical narrative. This one unfolds from the grandeur of a palace turned wartime headquarters to a soon-to-be infamous Italian abbey that came to symbolize the complexities of the often-overshadowed Italian campaign. Holland writes with eloquence and power about the harsh realities of a brutal battle that grabbed the world’s attention and helped to decide the future of Italy – Professor Michael S. Neiberg, author of When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American AllianceAstonishingly thorough and meticulously researched; it should become a standard work on this campaign…A formidable achievement * Telegraph *In his new book Cassino ‘44, celebrated historian and bestselling author James Holland has crafted a heart-pounding narrative of the brutal Allied fight to take Rome. Using a kaleidoscope of voices and sources, including a wealth of letters and diaries, Holland not only drops readers into the action but illuminates the tragic impact of war on the civilians. This is history at its finest! – James M. Scott, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Black Snow, Rampage and Target Tokyo

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. He is the author of a number of best-selling histories including most recently The Savage Storm and Cassino ‘44, and also of ten works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts. He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival, and he has presented - and written - many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery channels. With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival. He is a research fellow at St Andrew’s University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.