About this item
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.
About the Author
Alan Allport was born in Whiston, near Liverpool, in 1970, and is currently an Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University, NY. He specializes in the history of Britain in the period of the two world wars. His latest book, Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 was published by Yale University Press in 2015. Sir Max Hastings has called it "a memorable word-portrait" of Churchill's Army, and goes on: "[The author] has distilled a mass of wisdom and gathered all manner of truths under one roof, with skill and judgment". Andrew Roberts has described Browned Off as "deeply researched, well-written, and perceptive ... Second World War history written at its best."Professor Allport's first book was Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War, also published by Yale, which won the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award and was described by the Sunday Times (London) as "a wonderfully insightful study ... remarkably moving".He can be contacted at http://alanallport.net.
