The People's War: Britain, 1939-1945

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. In this comprehensive and engrossing narrative Angus Calder presents not only the great events and leading figures but also the oddities and 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, his 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.