From 1943 to 1951, 350 or so men and women from thirteen Allied nations served as the men and women of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section (MFAA) of the Allied armed forces, the eyes, ears and hands of the first and most ambitious effort in history to preserve the world's cultural heritage in times of war. They were known simply as Monuments Men. But during the thick of the fighting in Europe, from D-Day to V-E Day, when Germany surrendered, there were only sixty-five Monuments Men in the forward operating area. Sixty-five men to cover thousands of square miles, save hundreds of damaged buildings and find millions of cultural items before the Nazis could destroy them forever. "Monuments Men" is the story of eight of these men in the forward operating theatre: America's top art conservator; an up-and-coming young museum curator; a sculptor; a straight-arrow architect; a gay New York cultural impresario; and, an infantry private with no prior knowledge of or appreciation for art, but first-hand experience as a victim of the Nazi regime. They built their own treasure maps from scraps and hints: the diary of a Louvre curator who secretly tracked Nazi plunder through the Paris rail yards; records recovered from bombed out cathedrals and museums; overheard conversations; and, a tip from a dentist while getting a root canal. They started off moving in different directions, but ended up heading for the same place at the same time: the Alps near the German-Austrian border in the last two weeks of the war, where the great treasure caches of the Nazis were stored: the artwork of Paris, stolen mostly from Jewish collectors and dealers; masterworks from the museums of Naples and Florence; and, the greatest prize of all, Hitler's personal hoard of masterpieces, looted from the most important art collections and museums in Europe and hidden deep within a working salt mine - a mine the Nazis had every intention of destroying before it fell into Allied hands. How does the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History end? As is often the case, history is often more extraordinary than fiction.

罗伯特·M·埃德塞

《纽约时报》非小说类作品最具潜力的畅销书作家，著有《拯救达·芬奇》《盟军夺宝队》《盟军夺宝队之拯救意大利》等。《盟军夺宝队之拯救意大利》讲述了“二战”期间以艺术史学家和博物馆工作者为代表的古迹卫士们用生命捍卫意大利文化遗产的故事，其中包括德军的空袭差点儿毁了达·芬奇《最后的晚餐》，以及两位英勇的美国艺术学者和一位党卫军将领如何历尽艰险赎回遭纳粹劫掠的艺术品。

作者埃德塞是获奖纪录片《掠夺欧洲》的合作制片人，也是“古迹卫士艺术品保护基金会”的奠基人和主席。这个非盈利性组织获得了美国人道主义工作领域的最高奖——国家人道奖。此外，他还获得了德克萨斯艺术奖、总统服务奖以及由达拉斯大屠杀博物馆颁发的人道希望奖。他同时还为新奥尔良国家二战博物馆信托基金会服务。

布莱特·威特

与人合著过6本《纽约时报》榜单上的畅销书，作品已被翻译超过30种语言，在全世界销售近200万册。现居住于格鲁吉亚的迪凯特