"The conflict on the Eastern Front, fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany between 1941-1945, was the greatest, most costly, and most brutal conflict on land in human history. It was arguably the single most decisive factor of the war and shaped the postwar world as we know it. ... Bellamy outlines the lead-up to the war, in which the fragile alliance between the two dictators [Hitler and Stalin] was unceremoniously broken, and examines its far-reaching consequences, arguing that the cost of victory was too much for the Soviet Union to bear."--Page 4 of cover.