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By the late summer of 1944, World War II’s momentum had decisively shifted in favor of the Allies. In Europe, Allied armies had landed in Normandy, liberated Paris, and were pressing toward Germany’s borders, while Soviet forces swept westward across Eastern Europe . The “halcyon days” of mid-1944, as historian Michael Howard called them, saw the looming defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, prompting Allied leaders to turn their focus from winning the war to securing the peace . Amid the optimism, serious questions arose: How would a shattered world be rebuilt, and what kind of international order could…