As a war correspondent for the Daily Express, Alan Moorehead covered almost the entire war in North Africa. This work was originally published as three volumes covering the original Mediterranean front, 1940-1, when the British forces were led by General Wavell; then 1941-2, what Moorehead called a year of battle when General Auchinleck took over; and finally the end of the African campaign, the year of Eisenhower, Alexander and Montgomery, 1942-3. Here are the rats of Tobruk, their backs burnt by the sun and their muscles bulging like tennis balls, of Alamein with its green-blue sparkling sea and salt flats that looked like the surface of the moon, of Rommel's prized Africa Korps locked in battle for the dreary worn-out waste of the Western Desert with Montgomery's Eighth Army.