2026 SHORTLIST
Tim Bouverie
Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler
After the fall of France in June 1940, only Britain stood between Hitler and total victory. Desperate for allies, Winston Churchill did everything he could to bring the United States into the conflict, drive the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany apart and persuade neutral countries to resist German domination.
By 1942, after the German invasion of Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the British-Soviet-American alliance was in place. Yet it was an improbable and incongruous coalition, divided by ideology and politics and riven with mistrust and deceit. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were partners in the fight to defeat Hitler, yet they were also rivals who disagreed on strategy, imperialism and the future of liberated Europe.
Allies at War is a fast-paced, narrative history, based on material drawn from over a hundred archives. Using vivid, first-hand accounts and unpublished diaries, we enter the rooms where the critical decisions were made, revealing the political drama behind the military events. It offers a fresh perspective on the Second World War and the origins of the Cold War.
Tim Bouverie
Tim Bouverie is a historian and journalist. His latest book, Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler, was published in April 2025 to critical acclaim, with The Guardian calling it “a revelatory study of second world war alliances’ and The Independent calling it “A powerful and well-researched study of an alliance that was often fractious or worse”.
His first book Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War was a Sunday Times Bestseller and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. The book has been translated into eleven languages and is regarded as the first major narrative account of appeasement.
Having studied history at Oxford, Tim worked on historical and political documentaries before joining Channel 4 News, where he worked for four and a half years as a political journalist alongside Michael Crick, covering two General Elections and the Scottish and EU referendums.
