In diplomatic history, there is perhaps no better example of the rule of unintended consequences than the Yalta Conference. In 1945, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin met to ensure a peaceable aftermath to World War II. But, as this illuminating short-form book by Charles L. Mee Jr. shows, the results were anything but. Stalin created the conditions that would lead to the Soviet Union's demise. Churchill was presiding over an empire in decline and attached Britain to the fortunes of the United States. Roosevelt, meanwhile, set America and the world on the path to the Cold War.
