Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award The cast of characters includes Hitler and Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it. From the Nazi purges of "Degenerate Art" and Goering's shopping sprees in occupied Paris to the perilous journey of the "Mona Lisa" from Paris and the painstaking reclamation of the priceless treasures of liberated Italy, The Rape of Europa is a sweeping narrative of greed, philistinism, and heroism that combines superlative scholarship with a compelling drama. "Nicholas knows the art world as well as any military historian knows his battlefield.... Her work deserves the widest reading."--"New York Times Book Review"

林恩·H·尼古拉斯（Lynn H. Nicholas）生于美国康涅狄格州新伦敦，先后求学于美国、英国和西班牙，在牛津大学获得学士学位。返回美国后，她在美国国家艺术馆供职数年。在她于20世纪80年代早期旅居比利时时，她开始本书的研究工作。本书是尼古拉斯的处女作，她的作品还包括《残酷世界：纳粹网络里的欧洲儿童》（Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web，2005）。尼古拉斯曾获法国“荣誉军团勋章”和波兰“波兰之友”称号。她还担任在艺术品返还审判和美国国会中的专家证人。