The Battle of Britain

Nov 17, 2024 7:29 AM

Author:Richard Overy

The Battle of Britain tells the extraordinary story of one of the pivotal events of the Second World War - the struggle between British and German air forces in the late summer and autumn of 1940. Exposing many of the myths surrounding the conflict, the book provides answers to important questions: how close did Britain really come to invasion? What were Hitler and Churchill's motives? And what was the battle's real effect on the outcome of the war? Told with great clarity and objectivity, this is a superb introduction to a defining moment in our history.

'No individual British victory after Trafalgar was more decisive in challenging the course of a major war than was the Battle of Britain ... In his carefully argued, clearly explained and impressively documented book ... Richard Overy is at pains to dispose of the myths and expose the real history of what he does not doubt was a great British victory ... the best historical analysis in readable form which has yet appeared on this prime subject' Noble Frankland, The Times Literary Supplement

Reviews

As an objective reassessment of this most critical of struggles, cogently argued and concisely written, The Battle of Britain is hard to beat

—— Saul David , Sunday Telegraph

A captivating and readable analysis of the fragile circumstances of Britain's victory

—— Observer

Succeeds brilliantly ... puts the battle in context, and along the way a lot of myths bite the dust

—— Robin Knight , Time

Brilliant

—— The Economist

Nicholas Stargardt's harrowing account of the lives of children - both Jewish and non-Jewish - in Nazi Germany and its occupied territories is an essential document. The author builds a detailed picture of juvenile life under the Third Reich... Throughout this powerful book, Stargardt conveys the horrors of Nazism and the dangers of blind adherence to ideology... In this vitally important work, Stargardt turns an appalled eye on the destruction of innocence in wartime

—— Ian Thomson , Daily Telegraph

Magnificently researched and fluidly written...Witnesses of War is a powerful, unsentimental book, in which Stargardt tries to give all his subjects a fair hearing...This is an ambitious and impressive effort to see Nazi society in the round, which, for all Stargardt's sympathy for suffering across the board, never suggests a moral equivalence, never loses sight of the crucial moral distinctions between those he describes

—— Geraldine Bedell , Observer

Nicholas Stargardt's compelling new book tells exactly what was happening to the children of Europe who had been living under the Nazi regime...Stargardt's is, indeed, a terrible story: it is an account of the endless tramp of the innocents across Europe, a saga of cruelty, starvation, separation, loss and abject misery with lives without number ending in death

—— Juliet Gardiner , Daily Mail

Children are history's forgotten people; amidst the sound and fury of battle, as commanders decide the fate of empires, they are never seen. Yet as Nicholas Stargardt reveals in his heart-rending account of children's lives under the Nazis, to ignore them is to leave history half-written. This is an excellent book and it tells a terrible story... As Stargardt so eloquently reminds us, the tragedy is that children were part of the equation and suffered accordingly

—— Trevor Royle , Sunday Herald

'Nicholas Stargardt evokes the individual voices of children under Nazi rule. In re-creating their wartime experiences, he has produced a challenging new historical interpretation of the Second World War

—— History Today

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