Britain at Bay The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941

A sweeping, groundbreaking epic that combines military with social history, to illuminate the ways in which Great Britain and its people were permanently transformed by the Second World War. Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict, Alan Allport seeks to answer questions such as: Could the war have been avoided? Could it have been lost? Were the strategic decisions the rights ones? How well did the British organize and fight? How well did the British live up to their own values? What difference did the war make in the end to the fate of the nation? In answering these and other essential questions he focuses--unlike many historians--on the human contingencies of the war, looking directly at the roles of individuals and the outcomes determined by luck or chance. Moreover, he looks intimately at the changes in wartime and postwar British society and culture. Whether discussing the mixing of classes during the war or the Labour Party movement, he shows us in great detail the effects of the war, again not only on an institutional, but on an individual level as well. For better or worse, much of Britain today is ultimately the product of the experiences of 1939-1941.