History Camp Discussions
Thursday, March 13 @ 8 pm Eastern
Robert Hutton
The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler
Amazon Book Description:
Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point him out. Always ready with a drink and a story, Clarke was a well-known figure in Cairo social circles and nightlife. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Those who knew didn’t tell—and almost no one really knew at all.
Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumor, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler’s greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards, almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement.
Drawing on recently released documents and hugely expanding on the louche portrait of Clarke as seen in SAS: Rogue Warriors, journalist and historian Robert Hutton reveals the amazing story of Clarke’s “A Force,” the invention of the SAS and the Commandos, and the masterful hoodwinking of the Desert Fox at the battle of El Alamein.
The Illusionist tells for the first time the dazzling tale of how, at a pivotal moment in the war, British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives—on both sides.
Reviews:
“The rollicking tale of an eccentric but talented British military officer who deceived the Nazis on an unprecedented scale. A delightful account of a crucial piece of the Allied victory.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred
Advance praise for The Illusionist:
“A cracking tale. With admiration and pacy prose, Robert Hutton tracks one of the great characters of World War II. Expect ingenuity and eccentricity by the barrow-load.” — Sonia Purnell, New York Times bestselling author of A Woman of No Importance
“Hutton has revealed the brilliance of the ‘master of deception,’ Dudley Clarke. It took a true creative eccentric like Clarke to become the brains behind the success of the SAS and commandos in North Africa. Meticulously researched, The Illusionist is simply superb.” — Helen Fry, author of From Dachau to D-Day and Freud’s War
Join us at HistoryCamp.org/discussions for this free event and watch replays of earlier interviews, presentations, and discussions.