Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941

by Daniel Todman

Overview

Great Britain's refusal to yield to Nazi Germany in the Second World War remains one of the greatest survival stories of modern times. Commemorated, evoked, and mythologized as it has been-chiseled and engraved onto countless monuments, the subject of an endless stream of books and films-its triumphant outcome was by no means predetermined. In December 1940, months after war was declared, the director of plans at the War Office in London was asked to draft a paper on how to win the war. He replied that he could only plan "for not losing."

Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 is the first of two volumes in which Daniel Todman offers a brilliantly fresh retelling, an epic history to fit an epic story. "Opening with his discovery of some war medals sitting in a hearing-aid box that likely belonged to his grandfather, Todman realizes that despite it all a new generation seems unaware of what was truly at stake when Churchill invoked Britain's "finest hour." The war was far greater than any single heroic hour. For six years, Britain was at the dark heart of history, finding its way forward hour by hour, day by day, year by year. This volume spans the beginning and the end of the beginning, from the massive changes required to get the country onto a war footing, through the failure of appeasement, the invasion of Poland, the "phony war," the fall of France, the "miracle" of Dunkirk, the Battles of Britain, and the Blitz, ending with America's course-changing entrance into the conflict in late 1941.

Todman's colossal project seamlessly merges economic, strategic, social, cultural, and military history in one compelling narrative. Rapid industrialization, social disruption, food rationing, Westminster politics, class snobbery, and the mobilization of a global empire are woven together with the major opening battles. Here, also, are key individuals-the politicians, industrialists, pub owners, housewives, the pilots of the RAF, and the sailors at Dunkirk-caught in the maelstrom that threatened to engulf not just a small island nation but the world itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190621803
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/07/2016
Pages:	848
Sales rank:	677,651
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Daniel Todman is Senior Lecturer in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London. He is the co-editor of Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke's War Diaries, 1939 - 1945.

Table of Contents

List of maps

List of figures

Note on money, weights and measures and military formations

Introduction: War Stories

PART 1: PRELUDE

1. Studies in Celebration
2. Industry and Empire
3. Ancient and Modern
4. Politics and the Slump
5. Peace and War
6. Peace and Progress
7. State and Society
8. Division and Unity

PART 2: FROM PEACE TO WAR

9. 'More sufferings to come'
10. Czechoslovakia to Poland

PART 3: BEING AT WAR

11. Limited War
12. Boredom
13. Escalation
14. The Battle of France

PART 4: BATTLES OF BRITAIN

15. Finest Hour
16. 'What will happen now?'
17. The Battle of Britain
18. The Means of Victory
19. The Beginning of the Blitz
20. Taking It
21. The Battle of the British Empire
22. Britain Beyond the Blitz
23. Production and Reconstruction

PART 5: TOTAL WAR
24. The Widening War
25. Atlantic Crossings
26. The End of the Beginning

Acknowledgements

References

Editorial Reviews

"Todman has established a high bar for himself with this excellent first sortie into the conflict's history." — Alan Allport, Journal of Modern History

"A decade ago, Daniel Todman made his mark with a decidedly revisionist book on World War I, The Great War: Myth and Memory. In his second major work of popular history, Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 he aims to modify our perceptions of the United Kingdom's role in World War II. In this, the first of two planned volumes, he succeeds triumphantly." - Wall Street Journal

"Todman's book seems deserving of high respect for the amount he has read, the fluency of his narrative, mastery of complex information and generally clear and shrewd judgments. The author brings to a new audience a mass of ideas and data familiar only to my own aging generation. This is an energetic, ambitious, provocative work by a young historian of notable gifts, which deserves a wide readership." - Max Hastings, author of The Secret War

"In the opening pages of this book, the first volume in a monumental new history of Britain's experience of the 'long' Second World War, Daniel Todman presents his own personal links to the world of the war through which his grandparents lived. This could have been a rather sentimental journey, but Todman tells their story with a light touch. As Todman demonstrates, one of the most remarkable aspects of Britain's war effort was the strong sense that the country would not be defeated and would, in the end, emerge victorious. … The voices in Todman's book provide endearing evidence of such certitude and endeavour." - Richard Overy, author of A History of War in 100 Battles

"Britain's War is a sharply focused account of the transition of government and people from peacetime routines to the practices of total war. Hugely if overwhelmingly informative, the book brings us up to date with accuracy and precision across a multitude of fields." - The Times Literary Supplement

"Into Battle, the first volume of Dan Todman's new history of Britain and the Second World War, is a tour de force. Taking the story up to the end of 1941, Todman provides us with a judicious guide to the road to war and its catastrophic first phase, offering in addition a shrewd portrait of Churchill which is worth the price of the book alone. Total history at its best." —Jay Winter, Yale University

From the Publisher

2016-06-12
Authoritative first of a two-part history of Britain around the time of World War II.Todman (History/Queen Mary Univ. of London; The Great War: Myth and Memory, 2006) prefaces this sweeping, (overly?) exhaustive look at British society during these fraught years by referring to his grandparents experiencing the war as "the defining moment of their lives." He tells this story "as it went along"—i.e., as the citizens would have endured it daily rather than with the hindsight we enjoy. Indeed, the late 1930s were marked by joyous celebrations: there was a new king in 1937 (after the depressing turmoil of Edward VIII's abdication), and in the next year, the new Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's triumphant return from appeasing Hitler in Munich. Less than two decades after the last conflagration, few Britons, notes the author, "believed that another ‘great' war would be anything less than a disaster for humanity." Much of the detail of the run-up to war with Germany involves the machinations of government—i.e., Conservative versus Labour—and military preparedness: the doubling of the Territorial Army and escalation of the navy and Royal Air Force, all requiring enormous expense. To get a sense of what Britons were really feeling, Todman enlists, along with extensive use of archives and periodicals, the material gathered by Charles Madge's social scientific experiment, the Mass-Observation: detailed, ongoing descriptions gathered by regular people across the country to reveal a true sense of "public opinion." The author also includes numerous firsthand accounts from citizens, especially during the Blitz, which targeted British ports and industry and prompted evacuations of children and the vulnerable, who formed fire-watching services and united popular support for retaliation. In addition, Todman examines the participation of the whole of the British Empire and the galvanizing effort of the new prime minister, Winston Churchill. Excellent detail for certain readers, too much information for others.

Kirkus Reviews