In the United States, this was the Eisenhower decade, a moment defined by three seemingly unimpeachable convictions: first, that the recently concluded Second World War had been a righteous struggle pitting good against evil; second, that the ongoing Cold War was a replay of the conflict that had ended in 1945 in decisive victory; and third, that God had remained throughout firmly on our side. Today, several decades after they first appeared, Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), and The End of the Battle (1961) retain their place among the very best novels of World War II. Having endured persecution at the hands of anti-Papist Anglicans and now scorned by elites with little regard for religion in any form, the family has paid a heavy price for remaining steadfast in the Faith. ...quite lately rich and numerous," its members are "now much reduced," Waugh writes. Guy himself abandons farming and retreats into self-imposed exile in the family's ramshackle castello on the coast of Italy. Since church law prohibits Guy from remarrying, it appears likely that he himself will die without an heir.