Richard Overy is a honorary professor at the University of Exeter and a leading English historian of World War II. His books include 1939: Countdown to War; The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia; The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars; Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow; and his latest, Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-45. Overy is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the British Academy and has contributed to the design of various Imperial War Museum exhibits.