The People's War

The People's War
Author: Angus Calder
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 658
Release: 1992
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 0712652841

The 1939-45 conflict was, for Britain, a total war; no section of society remained untouched by military conscription, air raids, the shipping crisis and the war economy. This book not only states the great events and the leading figures, but also the oddities and the banalities of daily life, and in particular the parts played by ordinary people: air raid wardens and Home Guards, factory workers and farmers, housewives and pacifists. Above all, the book reveals how, in those six years, the British people came closer to discarding their social conventions than at any time since Cromwell's republic.

Which People's War?

Which People's War?
Author: Sonya O. Rose
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2004-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191037532

Which People's War? examines how national belonging, or British national identity, was envisaged in the public culture of the World War II home front. Using materials from newspapers, magazines, films, novels, diaries, letters, and all sorts of public documents, it explores such questions as: who was included as 'British' and what did it mean to be British? How did the British describe themselves as a singular people, and what were the consequences of those depictions? It also examines the several meanings of citizenship elaborated in various discussions concerning the British nation at war. This investigation of the powerful constructions of national identity and understandings of citizenship circulating in Britain during the Second World War exposes their multiple and contradictory consequences at the time. It reveals the fragility of any singular conception of 'Britishness' even during a war that involved the total mobilization of the country's citizenry and cost 400,000 British civilian lives.

The British Army and the People's War, 1939-1945

The British Army and the People's War, 1939-1945
Author: Jeremy A. Crang
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2000-11-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780719047411

During the Second World War the British army absorbed approximately three million new recruits, the majority of whom were conscripts. Drawn from all occupational groups and social classes, the military authorities were confronted with the task of molding these civilians in uniform into an effective fighting force. This book analyzes the impact of this process of integration on the army as a social institution. Exploring such aspects of the army’s social organization as other rank selection, officer selection, officer promotion, officer-man relations, the soldier’s working life, army welfare, and army education, it assesses the ways in which the army changed in relation to its new intake, what the extent of any change that took place actually was, and how different the army of 1945 was to that of 1939.

Fighting the People's War

Fighting the People's War
Author: Jonathan Fennell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 967
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107030951

Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

The Myth Of The Blitz

The Myth Of The Blitz
Author: Angus Calder
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2012-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1448104041

The Myth of the Blitz was nurtured at every level of society. It rested upon the assumed invincibility of an island race distinguished by good humour, understatement and the ability to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by team work, improvisation and muddling through. In fact, in many ways, the Blitz was not like that. Sixty-thousand people were conscientious objectors; a quarter of London's population fled to the country; Churchill and the royal family were booed while touring the aftermath of air-raids; Britain was not bombed into classless democracy. Angus Calder provides a compelling examination of the events of 1940 and 1941 - when Britain 'stood alone' against the Luftwaffe - and of the Myth which sustained her 'finest hour'.

This is England

This is England
Author: Neil Rattigan
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780838638620

Third, that the condition of total war in which Britain found itself a short time after the commencement of hostilities would mean that films, and indeed, all mass/popular culture, would respond to the urgency of the situation by taking a special interest in representations of British society. And fourth, following on from this, that British films of the Second World War would, one way or another, be agents of propaganda. From these propositions, the book examines just what these films had to say about social class in the images of Britain they were promulgating, with the corollaries of just how were they saying it, and why were they saying it. Alongside this is a concern with what propaganda purposes were being met by these films."--Jacket.

The People's War

The People's War
Author: Juliet Gardiner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 96
Release: 1991
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 9781855850729

A People's History of the Second World War

A People's History of the Second World War
Author: Donny Gluckstein
Publisher: Pluto Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780745328027

A People's History of the Second World War unearths the fascinating history of the war as fought "from below." Until now, the vast majority of historical accounts have focused on the regular armies of the allied powers. Donny Gluckstein shows that an important part of the fighting involved people's militias struggling against not just fascism, but also colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism itself. Gluckstein argues that despite this radical element, which was fighting on the ground, the allied governments were more interested in creating a new order to suit their interests. He shows how various anti-fascist resistance movements in Poland, Greece, Italy, and elsewhere were betrayed by the Allies despite playing a decisive part in defeating the Nazis. This book will fundamentally challenge our understanding of the Second World War – both about the people who fought it and the reasons for which it was fought.

Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War

Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War
Author: R. Scott Sheffield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108424635

A transnational history of how Indigenous peoples mobilised en masse to support the war effort on the battlefields and the home fronts.