Author:Ian Denys Peek
In February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Denys Peek and his brother were just two of tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers and citizens taken prisoner.
Eight months later, he and his comrades were packed into steel goods wagons and transported by rail to Siam. They were to become part of the slave labour force destined for the massive construction project that would later become infamous as the Burma Thailand Railway. He would spend the next three years in over fifteen different work and 'hospital' camps on the railway, stubbornly refusing to give in and die in a place where over 20,000 prisoners of war and uncounted slave labourers met their deaths.
Narrated in the present tense and written with clarity, passion and a remarkable eye for detail, Denys Peek has vividly recreated not just the hardships and horrors of the railway and the daily struggle for survival but also the comradeship, spirit and humour of the men who worked on it. It stands as a haunting, evocative and deeply moving testimony to the suffering of those who lived and died there - a salutary reminder of man's potential for inhumanity to his fellow man.
'May become one of the great epics of our time.'
—— SUN-HERALD'A triumph of memory and passion.'
—— WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN'Denys Peek has forged a diamond out of the terrible degradation of the past.'
—— MELBOURNE AGE'Brutally frank and beautifully moving.'
—— ADELAIDE ADVERTISERA startling and moving description of what it's like to slowly starve to death.
—— Independent on SundayHer journal, though acutely and poetically observed, is not mainly a record of the horrors themselves, but more of a rumination on their psychological and moral implications. Evoking the daily details of the siege, Ginzburg captures them and transforms them
—— NewsdayAn important corrective to the black-and-white portrait of the period that still prevails
—— Financial TimesA stimulating exercise in muscular revisionism ... Offers a fresh and provocative view of our much-loved and much-misunderstood "finest hour"
—— David Reynolds , GuardianAccessibly written and deserves a wide audience. Above all, Edgerton demonstrates that the war is a subject we haven't yet heard nearly enough about. Britain's War Machine is a considerable achievement
—— Graham Farmelo , Times Higher EducationEdgerton has excelled himself with this highly revisionist account of Britain's national performance during the Second World War ... an unusually provocative book
—— Twentieth Century British History, 2011Edgerton has written what could prove to be one of the most influential books on the history of the Second World War ... majestic ... [he] has successfully shown us that we still have a lot to learn about the conflict ... it will become the required reading for all students wishing to study the Second World War
—— Reviews in HistoryAn astounding work of myth-busting ... Inspiring and unsettling in equal measure
—— Tom Holland , GuardianMajestic ... a wonderful read. It has probably popped more myths than any other book on the war in recent years
—— Taylor Downing , History TodayBrilliant and iconoclastic ... debunks the myth that Britain was militarily and economically weak and intellectually parochial during the 1930s and 1940s
—— David Blackburn , Spectator Book BlogTruly eye-opening ... Edgerton's carefully researched book will fundamentally change the way you think about World War II
—— Daily BeastRiveting ... a wonderfully rich book ... thoroughly stimulating
—— Richard Toye , HistoryA major new assessment of Britain's war effort from 1939 to 1945. Never again will some of the lazy assessments of how Britain performed over these years ... be acceptable. That's why this is such an important book
—— History TodayInnovative and most important
—— Contemporary ReviewCompelling and engaging ... an excellent read
—— SoldierEdgerton's well-researched volume bursts with data that reveal Britain's true strength even when supposed to be in critical condition
—— Peter Moreira , Military HistoryBritain's War Machine offers the boldest revisionist argument that seeks to overturn some of our most treasured assumptions about Britain's role in the war ... Edgerton [is] an economic historian with an army of marshalled facts and figures at his fingertips ... This is truly an eye-opening book that explodes the masochistic myth of poor little Britain, revealing the island as a proud power with the resources needed to fight and win a world war
—— Nigel Jones , SpectatorMasterful Britain's War Machine promotes the notion that the United Kingdom of the Forties was a superpower, with access to millions of men across the globe, and forming the heart of a global production network
—— Mail on Sunday