
The second volume of Daniel Todman's account of Great Britain and World War IIThe second of Daniel Todman's two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947, begins with the event Winston Churchill called the "worst disaster" in British military history: the Fall of Singapore in February 1942 to the Japanese. As in the first volume of Todman's epic account of British involvement in World War II ("Total history at its best," according to Jay Winter), he highlights the inter-connectedness of the British experience in this moment and others, focusing on its inhabitants, its defenders, and its wartime leadership. Todman explores the plight of families doomed to spend the war struggling with bombing, rationing, exhausting work and, above all, the absence of their loved ones and the uncertainty of their return. It also documents the full impact of the entrance into the war by the United States, and its ascendant stewardship of the war.Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 is a triumph of narrative and research. Todman explains complex issues of strategy and economics clearly while never losing sight of the human consequences--at home and abroad--of the way that Britain fought its war. It is the definitive account of a drama which reshaped Great Britain and the world.
This volume investigates how Great Britain navigated the transition from imperial power to a diminished global actor during the final years of World War II and the immediate postwar period. Daniel Todman, a professor of modern history, utilizes a vast array of primary sources, including government archives, personal diaries, and economic data, to argue that the British experience was defined by the tension between its dwindling military autonomy and its increasing reliance on the United States. He presents a framework that balances high-level strategic decision-making with the lived realities of civilians and soldiers.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and scholars frequently cite this work as a comprehensive and authoritative account of the British wartime experience. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which effectively synthesizes complex economic and strategic data for a scholarly audience.
Page Count:
976
Publication Date:
2020-04-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190658487
ISBN-13:
9780190658489
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!