"Great battles mark history's turning points, occuring as they do where cultures and ideologies clash. While some battles have been won by the superior force, others have been won by a sheer dogged refusal to surrender in the face of overwhelming odds. All the great battles in this book are pivotal in history: if any one of them had gone the other way, the world would have been a very different place. And none of them-with the exception, perhaps, of Iwo Jima dn Berlin-was a foregone conclusion. -- BACK COVER.".