World War two

After a week of straight reading, I finally finished A Man Called Intrepid. It recounts the secret intelligence and guerrilla war that was spearheaded by Bill Stephenson.  I really enjoyed the book because it gave new insight into a part of World History that it is nowadays taken for granted.  When previously studying World War Two, it always was a fore spoken conclusion that the Allies won and the Axis lost. I thought that this occurred primarily through victories on the battle field.  However, Intrepid discusses how the victories on the battle field were directly attributable to the victories of a separate intelligence war.  

The book recounts how even before the US entered the war, there were joint operations being conducted between the British secret service and the US government.  The actions of these agencies resulted in such feats as the deciphering of the German's enigma message system, the disrupting Nazi attempts to create a nuclear weapon and the formation and support of guerrilla armies throughout Europe.

I think the most prevalent point of the book and the thing that drove my passion for reading it was that WWII was won because of intelligence and clever ideas opposed to brute force.  WWII was one of the moments in history and when humanity as a whole could have fallen down a dark hole of despair.  The Nazi's used fear, secrecy, lies and brutality to force their ideology and will upon people.  However, it were these very policies that formed the weakness of the Nazi. Through the courage of the free citizens to expose and shine light upon their misdeeds was it possible to destory the greatest evil in modern history.