This Week on History Happy Hour: An advance look at an exciting, brand-new book about Dwight Eisenhower set in the months leading up to the Normandy invasion. It takes a deep dive into the period when he grew from a well-liked general into one of the singular figures of American history.

Chris and Rick welcome Michel Paradis, author of The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower. Author Alex Kershaw calls the book "Gorgeously written. The only must-read book to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day."

Michel Paradis is a leading scholar and lawyer of international law and human rights. He has won high-profile cases in courts around the globe and worked for over a decade with the US Department of Defense, Military Commissions Defense Organization, where he led many of the landmark court cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. He is also a Lecturer at Columbia Law School, where he teaches about the military, the constitution, and the law of war. He has appeared on or written for NPR, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, America, The Intercept, and the late Weekly Standard. He lives with his wife, daughters, and yorkie in Manhattan.