Topography is Fate: North African Battlefields of WWII

Some World War II battle sites, such as the D-Day beaches of Normandy, are well known and frequently visited. The critical battlefields of the North African campaign, which took place between June 1940 and May 1943, are particularly inaccessible, both because of their geographic location and because they exist within a region that continues to be affected by political strife and violent upheavals. Yet, in 2011 and 2012, the photographer Matthew Arnold spent several months traveling from Egypt to Tunisia to document remote WWII battlefields where Axis and Allied forces fought against each other and against the elements amid challenging terrain. Beautifully illustrated with 79 of Arnold’s color images from this project, the book commemorates the 70th anniversary of the end of the North African campaign. “A vivid, often haunting look at North African battlefields that have been silent and largely unobserved for more than seventy years. Matthew Arnold’s photographs are so compelling that little imagination is needed to see opposing armies once again sweeping across the desert.” Rick Atkinson (American author and Pulitzer Prize winner)