KENNETH W. RENDELL
WORLD WAR II
SAVING THE REALITY (SEPTEMBER 2009)
by Kenneth W. Rendell
“The eyes of the world are upon you,” wrote Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower to his troops. “The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”
In September 2009—70 years after the beginning of World War II—Whitman Publishing rolls out a new book that uniquely captures the experience of the war. WORLD WAR II: Saving the Reality (September 1, 2009; $49.95 U.S./ $63.25 Canada) features replicas of nearly one hundred wartime artifacts: letters from the front, autographed portraits of commanding generals, urgent communiqués, Nazi and Allied propaganda, historic newspapers, Top Secret instructions, patriotic posters, and more. These pieces of history are tucked and folded into envelopes and pockets within this impressive and moving beautifully boxed book.
WORLD WAR II: Saving the Reality is based on the collection of the Museum of World War II, which the Imperial War Museum in London calls “the most comprehensive display of original World War II artifacts on exhibit anywhere in the world.”
Author Kenneth W. Rendell (founder and director of the museum) is well known to WWII historians for exposing the Hitler Diaries as a hoax, and, more recently, for debunking the so-called Jack the Ripper diaries. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has contributed the Foreword, calls Rendell’s new book “remarkable” and extols its “emotional journey back in time.” Phil Reed OBE, director of the Churchill Museum and War Cabinet Rooms and executive director of the Churchill Centre, says, “Kenneth Rendell’s Museum of World War II simply has no equal. The museum can at last be widely enjoyed through this volume.”