Though this book presents no great surprises or new insights, it's a smoothly written and easy to read book about the political climate and personalities in the 1930's leading into World War II and ending with the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk prior to the French surrender to the Germans.
I thought the best sections were the ones dealing with individual relationships in the backroom political life; and the all too infrequent stories related to the author's own family's place in the story. In fact, I really think the author wrote the wrong book. What would have been much more interesting, and which has not been much covered, would have been the story on how three Central European brothers established themselves in a still very class bound country. And not only established themselves, but became powerful in their own right, with connections in all the right places both in England and the United States. That wish aside, this is a good, popular history.