The Visionaries

James Holland has delivered a masterwork. The Visionaries is the gripping, behind-the-curtain story of the men and women who rebuilt the world after the carnage of World War II—and, in the process, engineered an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Holland shows that the postwar order didn’t happen by accident; it was designed with courage, clarity, and an audacious belief in human progress. This book reminds us that leadership matters, ideas matter, and that vision—real vision—can bend the arc of history. A must-read for anyone trying to understand how stability is built, how prosperity scales, and how we can protect what those architects created. Essential reading for anyone who cares about leadership and the future.

James Holland has delivered a masterwork. The Visionaries is the gripping, behind-the-curtain story of the men and women who rebuilt the world after the carnage of World War II—and, in the process, engineered an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Holland shows that the postwar order didn’t happen by accident; it was designed with courage, clarity, and an audacious belief in human progress. This book reminds us that leadership matters, ideas matter, and that vision—real vision—can bend the arc of history. A must-read for anyone trying to understand how stability is built, how prosperity scales, and how we can protect what those architects created. Essential reading for anyone who cares about leadership and the future.

A brilliant reassessment of the two wartime US presidents - FDR and Truman - whose far-sighted ideas helped to rebuild a shattered world and deliver 80 years of (mostly) peace and prosperity for the West, and a timely reminder during a time of flux that freedoms dearly won are much more easily lost.

The statesmen who rebuilt western Europe and northeast Asia after 1945 got more things right than any leaders ever before or since. At this moment when so many seem to have forgotten their lessons - and forsaken their legacy - James Holland retells their magnificent story vividly and accessibly. The remedy we need at the time we need it.

Highly readable and deeply researched…Holland has provided grist for readers of all political and national persuasions to understand the structures upon which today’s international order was formed and the dangers that exist if they are to be cavalierly done away with. One hopes that the work put into this book will be read, digested, and acted upon.

In The Visionaries , James Holland brings to bear his prodigious knowledge of the long Second World War era to provide not only a fresh look at that crucial period but also a series of reflections for our own time. Threats to democracy can emerge quickly and powerfully, and if we are not on our guard, as Holland demonstrates, they can threaten the entire international order.

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories including most recently The Savage Storm and Cassino '44, he is also the author of ten works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts.

He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival which is now in its twelfth year, and he has presented - and written - many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery channels.

With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival, and is a research fellow at St Andrew's University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He can be found on Twitter as @James1940 and on Instagram as @jamesholland1940.