Profile publishes major history of El Alamein by Jonathan Dimbleby

15 October 2012

A fresh look at the game changing Battle of El Alamein – by master historian Jonathan Dimbleby, is out now.

It was the British victory at the El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill’s most famous aphorisms: ‘This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’. And yet the true significance of this iconic episode remains unrecognised. In this thrilling historical account, Jonathan Dimbleby 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.

A BBC TV series based on the book will be broadcast on Monday 5 November.

‘Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.’ – Winston Churchill

Advance praise for Destiny in the Desert:

‘What makes this book so attractive is its crisp and authoritative treatment of the wider context in which this pivotal battle was fought. Dimbleby doesn’t pull his punches in assessing the qualities of the main players – Churchill brilliant but brutal, Auchinleck underestimated, Montgomery over-hyped and self-serving. Read this fresh and provocative account and you’ll be in little doubt that this was – for Britain – the  single most critical battle of the Second World War.’ – Peter Snow

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