In February 1945, three prominent figures of the twentieth century - Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin - met in Yalta, a resort on the Black Sea, as their armies converged on Berlin. They had very different views on what the post-war world should be like. Over the course of the eight historic days of the conference, they divided Germany, approved the most devastating bombing campaign in history, redrawn the borders of Eastern Europe, and created a new international organization to settle future disputes. Two months later, Roosevelt was dead, Stalin strengthened his dominance in Poland, and Churchill was heading towards a humiliating electoral defeat.

Since then, opinions have diverged greatly on their achievements. Did Yalta lead to the Cold War? Did the ailing Roosevelt give too much to Stalin? S.M. Plokhy, one of the foremost historians of our time and a professor at Harvard University, signs a groundbreaking book that draws on recently declassified Soviet documents.