Unfinest Hour

Oct 10, 2024 10:27 AM

Author:Brendan Simms

Unfinest Hour

For most of 1992-1995, Britain stood aside while an internationally recognised state was attacked by externally-sponsored rebels bent on a campaign of territorial aggression and ethnic cleansing. It was her unfinest hour since 1938. Based on interviews with many of the chief participants, parliamentary debates, and a wide range of sources, Brendan Simm's brilliant study traces the roots of British policy and the highly sophisticated way in which the government sought to minimise the crisis and defuse popular and American pressure for action. We all continue to live with the results of these shameful actions to this day.

Reviews

As well as being a rare military historian who can also write gracefully, John Keegan has a distinguished capacity for peering behind the conventional view of events.

—— Alistair Horne , Sunday Times

Fascinating. An intricate, gracefully told and often moving social history of a talented family in times of revolution, civil war, dictatorship and world conflict

—— Rachel Polonsky , New Statesman

A fascinating spy story, a delicious entertainment, a compelling investigation

—— Simon Sebag-Montefiore , Evening Standard

An extraordinary drama of exile and espionage

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

Beevor uses the story to evoke a world - the vague ideological borderlands of Nazism and Communism

—— Felipe Fernández-Armesto , The Times

No previous biographer has examined Hitler's devilishness in Kershaw's detail ... his book is so comprehensive, so richly documented and so judicious that it will not soon be superseded

—— Daniel Johnson , Daily Telegraph

A riveting narrative ... the text positively crackles with fascinating insights and interesting perceptions ... this is unquestionably an outstanding biography

—— Frank McLynn , Herald

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