Potts, Joanna

views updated

Potts, Joanna

PERSONAL:

Education: Graduate of the University of Bristol, England, 2001.

CAREER:

Historian, researcher, and writer. Worked as series researcher on the British Channel Four series Empire and for the accompanying book; also researcher for Channel Four's Ten Days to D-Day, and for a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) biography of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

WRITINGS:

(With Simon Berthon) Warlords: The Heart of Conflict, 1939-1945, Politico (London, England), 2005, published as Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, Da Capo/Perseus (New York, NY), 2006

SIDELIGHTS:

Joanna Potts is a historian and researcher who collaborated with documentary film producer Simon Berthon to write Warlords: The Heart of Conflict, 1939-1945, which was published in the United States as Warlords: An Extraordinary Recreationof World War II through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Drawing largely from the diaries, memoirs, and letters of the four leaders, the authors provide insight into each individual leader's day-to-day efforts in the war and what they thought about each other. The authors also discuss the strategies used by both sides in fighting the war's major battles. In a review for the Library Journal, Ed Goedeken noted that Potts and Berthon tell their story with "a lively narrative that shifts quickly from scene to scene, taking the reader along for the ride." Goedeken added: "And a great ride it is!" A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the authors' "cinematic style succeeds … and the scholarship is solid." Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist, commented that the book "will appeal more to new rather than veteran WWII readers." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote: "The authors offer excellent coverage … of the slights, blunders and jealousies that so characterized the Allies." The reviewer also referred to Warlords as "reasonably good as a big-picture overview."