This book presents the full story of the desert victory that cleared a path into Europe during World War II. It was the British victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: it is not the end nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning. This book describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle, charting the nail-biting months that led to the victory at El Alamein in November 1942. It is a story of high drama, played out both in the war capitals of London, Washington, Berlin, Rome and Moscow, and at the front, in the command posts and foxholes in the desert. El Alamein is about politicians and generals, diplomats, civil servants and soldiers. It is about forceful characters and the tensions and rivalries between them. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved at every level, Dimbleby creates a vivid portrait of a struggle which for Churchill marked the turn of the tide - and which for the soldiers on the ground involved fighting and dying in a foreign land.