Knopf Publishing Group
Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941
Key Metrics
- Alan Allport
- Knopf Publishing Group
- Hardcover
- 9780451494740
- 9.3 X 6.5 X 1.8 inches
- 2 pounds
- History > Europe - Great Britain - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
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's first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles 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 on the human contingencies of the war, weighing directly at the roles of individuals and the outcomes determined by luck or chance. Moreover, he looks intimately at the changes in wartime British society and culture. Britain at Bay draws on a large cast of characters--from the leading statesmen and military commanders who made the decisions, to the ordinary men, women, and children who carried them out and lived through their consequences--in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. For better or worse, much of Britain today is ultimately the product of the experiences of 1938-1941.
Author Bio
Alan Allport specializes in the history of Britain in the period of the two world wars. His most recent book, Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War 1938-1941 was published by Knopf (North America) and Profile (UK) in 2020.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Professor Paul Kennedy of Yale University said that "Britain at Bay ... might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written."
It was a Sunday Times (London) history book of the year and a finalist for the 2020 RUSI Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History. Professor Allport's previous two books are Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 which was published by Yale University Press in 2015 and Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War, published by Yale in 2009, which won the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award.
He is currently writing a sequel to Britain at Bay provisionally titled Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War 1942-1945. Professor Allport is interested in hearing from any potential graduate students interested in studying 20th century Britain and the history of the two world wars.
Source: Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs
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