Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. The author of more than twenty books on the dictators, airpower and World War II, he is one of Britain's leading historians of the twentieth century. His books include The Air War 1939-1945, Why the Allies Won, Russia's War and more recently The Dictators, which won the 2005 Wolfson Prize for history. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.