Author : C. J. Litzenberger
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 32,90 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780742537354
This engaging book provides a gateway to larger themes in modern British history through a set of fascinating portraits of individuals that explore important events and movements from the perspective of the people involved. As a rich and humanized supplement to traditional survey texts, this book offers readers a deeper understanding of key facets of British life in the early modern and modern periods.
Author : Helen Jones
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 10,78 MB
Release : 2006-04-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780719072901
This is the first full-length study of the behavior of British civilians and their reactions to air raids during the Second World War. It unravels the day-to-day influence on people at these times of great danger, risk and uncertainty, and challenges the traditional image of civilians as passive shelterers under attack. It uncovers Churchill and his government's desperate attempts to persuade key workers to continue with their work once the air raid siren had sounded, and reveals the complex reasons why so many workers were willing to run such risks.
Author : James Hayward
Publisher : The History Press
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 46,40 MB
Release : 2016-02-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0750968613
In the whole course of the war,’ conceded Britain’s chief press censor, ‘there was no story which gave me so much trouble as that of the attempted German invasion, flaming oil on the water and 30,000 burned Germans.’ Sparked by the Directorate of Military Intelligence and MI6, rumours that Britain had set fire to the English Channel to defeat a German invasion in 1940 quickly spread around the world. Highly popular in America, the incendiary ‘Big Lie’ became Britain’s first significant propaganda victory of the Second World War.Yet the unlikely deception was founded in fact. Dead German soldiers were washed ashore on British beaches, a secret Petroleum Warfare Department tested lethal flame barrages on land and sea, and fire ships were hastily dispatched to enemy ports as part of Operation Lucid. British intelligence agencies even managed to plant the burning sea story on their opposite numbers in Nazi Germany.Burn the Sea is the definitive account of the origin, circulation and astonishing longevity of the myth of the ‘invasion that failed’ in 1940, as well as its remarkable revival in 1992.
Author : Simon Mawer
Publisher : Hachette+ORM
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 40,61 MB
Release : 2009-05-07
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0316073792
Rob Ross is driving home when he hears that his childhood friend Jim Matthewson has fallen to his death in a climbing accident. Rob's decision to turn his car around and make the journey to comfort Jim's widow is the beginning of a journey into the past, back to Rob's youth before he made the pivotal choices that now come back to haunt him. Simon Mawer skillfully unveils the delicate layers of history in the lives of a group of people connected over the years by camaraderie, love, competition, and lust. In the shadow of an old love triangle lies the story of another, and as we follow the characters from London during the Blitz to the mountain ranges of the Alps and back to present-day Wales, Mawer reveals how the agonies of the past impinge upon the present. This is an intelligent, thought-provoking love story by a brilliant, masterful novelist.
Author : Malcolm Smith
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 33,21 MB
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : 9780415240765
1940 was the most significant year in European history this century, this book examines what it meant for the people of Britain then and now. Malcolm Smith details the resultant influences that have constructed our national consciousness.
Author : Mike Brown
Publisher : The History Press
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 15,21 MB
Release : 2011-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 075246275X
The historian Carol Harris has collected together a remarkable series of accounts from the war's darkest days, with heart-warming stories of survival, perseverance, solidarity and bravery, the preservation of which becomes increasingly important as the Blitz fades from living memory. War with Germany seemed increasingly likely throughout the 1930s. The British Government and the general population believed that bombs and poison gas would be dropped on civilians in major towns and cities with the aim of terrifying them into surrendering. Today the Blitz, far from breaking civilian morale, is seen as achieving the opposite; it helped galvanise public opinion to carry on fighting the war. But in 1937, preparations to protect the population were hopelessly inadequate, and the British government was far from confident that people would respond in this way.
Author : Richard Collier
Publisher : Canelo + ORM
Page : 487 pages
File Size : 22,91 MB
Release : 2022-03-24
Category : History
ISBN : 1800325908
The most shocking year in history. Week by week, hour by hour. In his brilliant reconstruction, Richard Collier vividly brings one of the most momentous years in world history to life once again. This was a time of blitzkrieg and the Blitz; of the Battle of Britain and Dunkirk. From the fighting in Finland to the destruction of Coventry, from the sinking of the French fleet in Oran to the invasion of Norway, this is history at its most extraordinary and engaging. By recounting major episodes from the viewpoint of those actually involved, Collier provides enlightening glimpses of just what war represented to both the great and to the unknown, and reveals that while 1940 was a year of incredible folly, it was also a time of inestimable bravery. Perfect for readers of Anthony Beevor and Max Hastings, this is an unforgettable book about an unforgettable year, a year that shaped the world we know today. ‘Masterly... you could be reading a spine-tingling thriller’ Sunday Express ‘I would like to see this book made compulsory reading’ Evening Standard
Author : Rob Baker
Publisher : Amberley Publishing Limited
Page : 423 pages
File Size : 38,23 MB
Release : 2017-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 144566626X
Twenty-five more strange and fascinating true-life tales featuring the greatest city in the world.
Author : P. Goodman
Publisher : Springer
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 43,32 MB
Release : 2001-12-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1403914133
This book examines women's experiences in Britain during the Second World War, drawing on women's own memories and archival sources. It explores the myths and silences surrounding women's contribution to the war effort. Part of the text is devoted to women's experience of paid employment and how their sexuality became a contentious workplace issue. This theme is continued in the accounting for the sexuality of women on other spaces and places and how women re-negotiated their femininity, and thus their own 'war experiences'.
Author : Don Watson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 283 pages
File Size : 29,17 MB
Release : 2023-12-28
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 135023205X
This study of British amateur theatre in the inter-war period examines five different but interwoven examples of the belief, common in theatrical and educational circles at the time, that amateur drama had a purpose beyond recreation. Amateur theatre was at the height of its popularity as a cultural practice between the wars, so that by 1939 more British people had practical experience of putting on plays than at any time before or since. Providing an original account of the use of drama in adult education projects in deprived areas, and of amateur theatre in government-funded centres for the unemployed in the 1930s, it discusses repertoires, participation by working- class people and pioneering techniques of play-making. Amateur drama festivals and competitions were intended to raise standards and educate audiences. This book assesses their effect on play-making, and the use of innovative one-act plays to express contentious material, as well as looking at the Left Book Club Theatre Guild as an attempt to align the amateur theatre movement with anti-fascist and anti-war movements. A chapter on the Second World War rectifies the neglect of amateur theatre in war-time cultural studies, arguing that it was present and important in every aspect of war-time life. Don Watson builds on current scholarship and makes use of archival sources, local newspapers, unpublished scripts and the records of organizations not usually associated with the theatre. His work explores the range and diversity of amateur drama between the wars and the contributions it made to British theatre.
