War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East

Book cover of War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East by Gershom Gorenbergby Gershom Gorenberg
@GershomG

In this World War II military history, Rommel’s army is a day from Cairo, a week from Tel Aviv, and the SS is ready for action. Espionage brought the Nazis this far, but espionage can stop them—if Washington wakes up to the danger.

As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies’ plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies’ greatest secrets.

Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began.

War of Shadows is the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.

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Interview with the Author

Podcast Art for Commonwealth Club of CaliforniaCommonwealth Club of California 
Gershom Gorenberg: War of Shadows
1/28/21          59 min

Podcast art for Warfare podcastWarfare
Codes, Spies and a Shadow War: The Fight for the Middle East
6/13/21         45 min

Podcast art for Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New YorkLeonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York 
Gershom Gorenberg on his latest book War of Shadows
2/1/21           48 min

Podcast Art for the New Book NetworkNew Books Network 
Gershom Gorenberg, “War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive Nazis from the Middle East” (Public Affairs, 2021)
3/31/21               60 min

Tel Aviv Review 
Cracking the Code
1/25/21         40 min

Podcast Art for the New Book NetworkNew Books Network 
Gershom Gorenberg, “War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East” (Public Affairs: 2021)
11/11/21            43 min

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