On June 18th, 1940, shortly after France fell to Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill delivered his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons, galvanizing and inspiring Great Britain as it prepared for the impending cataclysm that was World War Two. In the coming years, Britain was at the center of the greatest struggle of modern times, a struggle whose outcome, now legendary, was by no means predetermined. In Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941, historian Daniel Todman reflects on the replacement war medals kept in his desk that could have belonged to his grandfather-Charles Todman's actual medals were lost in the shuffle of family life-contemplating memory, storytelling, and in his own words, "finding new meanings and turning the familiar strange."
Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 is the first of two volumes in which Todman does just this, offering a brilliantly fresh retelling of the Greatest Generation's narrative. Beginning in the pre-war years, when shadows across the Channel were deepening but most of Britain hoped to avoid a second continental cataclysm, it spans the dawning realization of what lay ahead and the massive changes required for a war footing. It then covers the failure of appeasement, the invasion of Poland, the uneasy "phony war," the fall of France, the miracle of Dunkirk and the pivotal Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and ends with America's entrance into the struggle. Stories of industrialization, full employment, food rationing, Westminster politics, and the mobilization of a global empire are woven together with major battles to show just how desperately high the stakes of the war were and how uncertain its conclusion. Todman's epic project does what no other has done, linking cultural, economic, strategic, social, and military history in one sweeping work. Here, also, are key individuals - Churchill, the pilots of the RAF, and the sailors at Dunkirk-caught in the maelstrom that threatened to swallow not just the scepter'd isle but the world itself.
Colossal in scale and engrossing in detail, Todman's project brings to vivid life the many dramatic and unexpected disruptions that changed the course of the war in ways none at the time could foresee. Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 offers readers a full account of the entire conflict as it was experienced by all the people of Britain and its Empire.