CITIZENS OF LONDON

An engrossing, character-driven work of World War II history by author and journalist Lynne Olson, that tells the dramatic behind-the-scenes story of the difficult growth of the Anglo-American wartime alliance.

While justly acclaimed as the closest, most successful military partnership in history, the relationship forged between the US and Britain during World War II was anything but the inevitable alliance it appears to be in hindsight. American aid was late, expensive, and reluctantly granted by an isolationist government that abhorred the idea of another world war.

Olson argues that it was the work of three key men that eventually changed American attitudes: Averell Harriman, the rich, well-connected director of President Roosevelt's controversial program in which the U.S., "loaned" military equipment to the UK; Edward R. Murrow, the handsome, innovative head of CBS News who was the first person to broadcast over live, on-location radio to the American public, and John Gilbert Winant a shy former governor who became the new U.S. ambassador to Britain after Joseph Kennedy quit the post.

Through their interconnected stories, Olson effortlessly brings to life this period in history when the personal and political intermingled in the world of diplomacy. Indeed, key to the book is the extremely close relationship between Winston Churchill and these three men so intimate were their ties that all three men had love affairs with women in Churchill's family. Olson is most recently the author of Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England (FSG, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; she is also frequent speaker on topics related to Anglo-American relations, World War II, and Churchill.