As the first comprehensive treatment of the American entry into World War II to appear in over thirty-five years Waldo Heinrichs' volume places American policy in a global context covering both the European and Asian diplomatic and military scenes with Roosevelt at the center. Telling a tale of ever-broadening conflict this vivid narrative weaves back and forth from the battlefields in the Soviet Union to the intense policy debates within Roosevelt's administration to the sinking of the battleship Bismarck to the precarious and delicate negotiations with Japan. Refuting the popular portrayal of Roosevelt as a vacillating impulsive man who displayed no organizational skills in his decision-making during this period Heinrichs presents him as a leader who acted with extreme caution and deliberation who always kept his options open and who once Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union stalled in July 1941 acted rapidly and with great determination. This masterful account of a key moment in American history captures the tension faced by Roosevelt Churchill Stimson Hull and numerous others as they struggled to shape American policy in the climactic nine months before Pearl Harbor.