Download or read book Britain s War Machine written by David Edgerton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-09 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.
Download or read book Britain at Bay written by Alan Allport and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From statesmen and military commanders to ordinary Britons, a bold, sweeping history of Britain's entrance into World War II—and its efforts to survive it—illuminating the ways in which the war permanently transformed a nation and its people “Might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written.” —The Wall Street Journal Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict’s first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles pressing questions such as whether the war could have been avoided, how it could have been lost, how well the British lived up to their own values, and ultimately, what difference the war made to the fate of the nation. In answering these questions, he reexamines our assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of the ways in which the Second World War transformed British culture and society. This bracing account draws on a lively cast of characters—from the political and military leaders who made the decisions, to the ordinary citizens who lived through them—in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. A sweeping and groundbreaking epic, Britain at Bay gives us a fresh look at the opening years of the war, and illuminates the integral moments that, for better or for worse, made Britain what it is today.
Download or read book Great Britain s Great War written by Jeremy Paxman and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. *** We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of Remembrance Day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long? Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children. It shows how both British life and identity were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war. Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation. *** "A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian "He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times
Download or read book How Britain Won the War of 1812 written by Brian Arthur and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2011 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book demonstrates the effectiveness of British maritime blockades, both naval blockade, which handicapped the American Navy, and commercial blockade, which restricted US overseas trade. The commercial blockade severely reduced US government income, which was heavily dependent on customs duties, forcing it to borrow, eventually without success. Actually insolvent, the US government abandoned its war aims.
Download or read book Battle of Britain written by Leonard Mosley and published by Time Life Education. This book was released on 1977 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the aircraft, pilots, tactics, and results of the three-month Battle of Britain in 1940.
Download or read book Britain s War on Poverty written by Jane Waldfogel and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2010-04-08 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999, one in four British children lived in poverty—the third highest child poverty rate among industrialized countries. Five years later, the child poverty rate in Britain had fallen by more than half in absolute terms. How did the British government accomplish this and what can the United States learn from the British experience? Jane Waldfogel offers a sharp analysis of the New Labour government's anti-poverty agenda, its dramatic early success and eventual stalled progress. Comparing Britain's anti-poverty initiative to U.S. welfare reform, the book shows how the policies of both countries have affected child poverty, living standards, and well-being in low-income families and suggests next steps for future reforms. Britain's War on Poverty evaluates the three-pronged anti-poverty strategy employed by the British government and what these efforts accomplished. British reforms sought to promote work and make work pay, to increase financial support for families with children, and to invest in the health, early-life development, and education of children. The latter two features set the British reforms apart from the work-oriented U.S. welfare reforms, which did not specifically target income or program supports for children. Plagued by premature initiatives and what some experts called an overly ambitious agenda, the British reforms fell short of their intended goal but nevertheless significantly increased single-parent employment, raised incomes for low-income families, and improved child outcomes. Poverty has fallen, and the pattern of low-income family expenditures on child enrichment and healthy food has begun to converge with higher-income families. As Waldfogel sees it, further success in reducing child poverty in Britain will rely on understanding who is poor and who is at highest risk. More than half of poor children live in families where at least one parent is working, followed by unemployed single- and two-parent homes, respectively. Poverty rates are also notably higher for children with disabled parents, large families, and for Pakistani and Bangladeshi children. Based on these demographics, Waldfogel argues that future reforms must, among other goals, raise working-family incomes, provide more work for single parents, and better engage high-risk racial and ethnic minority groups. What can the United States learn from the British example? Britain's War on Poverty is a primer in the triumphs and pitfalls of protracted policy. Notable differences distinguish the British and U.S. models, but Waldfogel asserts that a future U.S. poverty agenda must specifically address child poverty and the income inequality that helps create it. By any measurement and despite obstacles, Britain has significantly reduced child poverty. The book's key lesson is that it can be done.
Download or read book Britain s War Into Battle 1937 1941 written by Daniel Todman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane"--Title page verso.
Download or read book Staring at God written by Simon Heffer and published by Century. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: _______________________________ 'A brilliant history: The first serious and really wide-ranging history of the Home Front during the Great War for decades. Scholarly, objective and extremely well-written. Filled with surprising revelations and empathy. Heffer's eye for the telling detail is evident on almost every page. A remarkable intellectual and literary achievement.' - ANDREW ROBERTS, TELEGRAPH _______________________________ A major new work of history on the profound changes in British society during the First World War The Great War evokes images of barbed wire and mud-filled trenches, and of the carnage of the Somme and Passchendaele, but it also involved change on the home front on an almost revolutionary scale. In his hugely ambitious and deeply researched new book, Simon Heffer explores how Britain was drawn into this slaughter, and was then transformed to fight a war in which, at times, its very future seemed in question. After a vivid account of the fraught conversations between Whitehall and Britain's embassies across Europe as disaster loomed in July 1914, Heffer explains why a government so desperate to avoid conflict found itself championing it. He describes the high politics and low skulduggery that saw the principled but passive Asquith replaced as prime minister by the unscrupulous but energetic Lloyd George; and he unpicks the arguments between politicians and generals about how to prosecute the war, which raged until the final offensive. He looks at the impact of four years of struggle on everyday life as people sought to cope with dwindling stocks of food and essential supplies, with conscription into the Army or wartime industries, with air-raids and with the ever-present threat of bereavement; and, in Ireland, with the political upheaval that followed the Easter Rising. And he shows how, in the spring of 1918, political obstinacy and incompetence saw all this sacrifice almost thrown away. Throughout, he complements his analysis with vivid portraits of the men and women who shaped British life during the war - soldiers such as Lord Kitchener, politicians such as Churchill, pacifists such as Lady Ottoline Morrell, and overmighty subjects such as the press magnate Lord Northcliffe. The result is a richly nuanced picture of an era that endured suffering and loss on an appalling scale but that also advanced the emancipation of women, notions of better health care and education, and pointed the way to a less deferential, more egalitarian future. _____________________________ 'Staring at God is a vast compendium of atrocious political conduct. Refreshing. A trenchant history.' - GERARD DE GROOT, THE TIMES 'A magisterial history' - MELANIE MCDONAGH, DAILY MAIL 'Gloriously rich and spirited [...] it zips along, leavened by so many wonderful cultural and social details.' - DOMINIC SOUTHBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES 'Ambitious in its scope, content and approach. Masterly.' - CHARLES VYVYAN, STANDPOINT 'Fascinating stuff.' - SPECTATOR 'Possibly the finest, most comprehensive analysis of the home front in the Great War ever produced.' - LITERARY REVIEW 'Every bit as good as its two predecessors. Illuminating.' - EXPRESS 'Absorbing' - NEW STATESMAN
Download or read book Britain at War in Colour written by I. Carter and published by Imperial War Museums. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproductions of one hundred rare, full-color images from the archives of the Imperial War Museums bring new life to World War II Britain Britain at War in Colour showcases one hundred of the best rare and original color images from the Imperial War Museums' unparalleled collection. Bringing together the most striking photographs from Ian Carter's bestselling War in the Air and The Second World War in Colour, alongside new and never-before-published images, this powerful visual collection shows us a new--or at least long-forgotten--World War II.
Download or read book Stress in Post War Britain 1945 85 written by Mark Jackson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years following World War II the health and well-being of the nation was of primary concern to the British government. The essays in this collection examine the relationship between health and stress in post-war Britain through a series of carefully connected case studies.
Download or read book Investment in Blood written by Frank Ledwidge and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this follow-up to his much-praised book Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Frank Ledwidge argues that Britain has paid a heavy cost - both financially and in human terms - for its involvement in the Afghanistan war. Ledwidge calculates the high price paid by British soldiers and their families, taxpayers in the United Kingdom, and, most importantly, Afghan citizens, highlighting the thousands of deaths and injuries, the enormous amount of money spent bolstering a corrupt Afghan government, and the long-term damage done to the British military's international reputation. In this hard-hitting exposé, based on interviews, rigorous on-the-ground research, and official information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Ledwidge demonstrates the folly of Britain's extended participation in an unwinnable war. Arguing that the only true beneficiaries of the conflict are development consultants, international arms dealers, and Afghan drug kingpins, he provides a powerful, eye-opening, and often heartbreaking account of military adventurism gone horribly wrong."--
Download or read book Britain s Long War written by P. Neumann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-11-04 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britain's Long War assesses the process of strategic change within the British Government's position on Northern Ireland, starting with Westminster's first intervention in 1969 and ending with the Belfast Agreement in 1998. Drawing on a vast range of primary sources including recently released cabinet papers, Peter Neumann analyzes the aims, strategy and restraints of British policy in Northern Ireland.
Download or read book Britain and the Origins of the First World War written by Zara S. Steiner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why did Britain become involved in the First World War? Taking into account the scholarship of the last twenty-five years, this second edition of Zara S. Steiner's classic study, thoroughly revised with Keith Neilson, explores a subject which is as highly contentious as ever. While retaining the basic argument that Britain went to war in 1914 not as a result of internal pressures but as a response to external events, Steiner and Neilson reject recent arguments that Britain became involved because of fears of an 'invented' German menace, or to defend her Empire. Instead, placing greater emphasis than before on the role of Russia, the authors convincingly argue that Britain entered the war in order to preserve the European balance of power and the nation's favourable position within it. Lucid and comprehensive, Britain and the Origins of the First World War brings together the bureaucratic, diplomatic, economic, strategical and ideological factors that led to Britain's entry into the Great War, and remains the most complete survey of the pre-war situation.
Download or read book The People s War written by Angus Calder and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War was, for Britain, a 'total war'; no section of society remained untouched by military conscription, air raids, the shipping crisis and the war economy. In this comprehensive and engrossing narrative Angus Calder presents not only the great events and leading figures but also the oddities and banalities of daily life on the Home Front, and in particular the parts played by ordinary people: air raid wardens and Home Guards, factory workers and farmers, housewives and pacifists. Above all this revisionist and important work reveals how, in those six years, the British people came closer to discarding their social conventions than at any time since Cromwell's republic. Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 1970, The People’s War draws on oral testimony and a mass of neglected social documentation to question the popularised image of national unity in the fight for victory.
Download or read book Fighting for Britain written by David Killingray and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2010 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War over half-a-million African troops served with the British Army as combatants and non-combatants in campaigns in the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Italy and Burma - the largest single movement of African men overseas since the slave trade. This account, based mainly on oral evidence and soldiers' letters, tells the story of the African experience of the war. It is a 'history from below' that describes how men were recruited for a war about which most knew very little. Army life exposed them to a range of new and startling experiences: new foods and forms of discipline, uniforms, machines and rifles, notions of industrial time, travel overseas, new languages and cultures, numeracy and literacy. What impact did service in the army have on African men and their families? What new skills did soldiers acquire and to what purposes were they put on their return? What was the social impact of overseas travel, and how did the broad umbrella of army welfare services change soldiers' expectations of civilian life? And what role if any did ex-servicemen play in post-war nationalist politics? In this book African soldiers describe in their own words what it was like to undergo army training, to travel on a vast ocean, to experience battle, and their hopes and disappointments on demobilisation. DAVID KILLINGRAY is Professor Emeritus of History, Goldsmiths, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.
Download or read book The Global Seven Years War 1754 1763 written by Daniel A. Baugh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-22 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Seven Years War was a global contest between the two superpowers of eighteenth century Europe, France and Britain. Winston Churchill called it “the first World War”. Neither side could afford to lose advantage in any part of the world, and the decisive battles of the war ranged from Fort Duquesne in what is now Pittsburgh to Minorca in the Mediterranean, from Bengal to Quèbec. By its end British power in North America and India had been consolidated and the foundations of Empire laid, yet at the time both sides saw it primarily as a struggle for security, power and influence within Europe. In this eagerly awaited study, Daniel Baugh, the world’s leading authority on eighteenth century maritime history looks at the war as it unfolded from the failure of Anglo-French negotiations over the Ohio territories in 1784 through the official declaration of war in 1756 to the treaty of Paris which formally ended hostilities between England and France in 1763. At each stage he examines the processes of decision-making on each side for what they can show us about the capabilities and efficiency of the two national governments and looks at what was involved not just in the military engagements themselves but in the complexities of sustaining campaigns so far from home. With its panoramic scope and use of telling detail this definitive account will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in military history or the history of eighteenth century Europe.
Download or read book In These Times written by Jenny Uglow and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully observed history of the British home front during the Napoleonic Wars by a celebrated historian We know the thrilling, terrible stories of the battles of the Napoleonic Wars—but what of those left behind? The people on a Norfolk farm, in a Yorkshire mill, a Welsh iron foundry, an Irish village, a London bank, a Scottish mountain? The aristocrats and paupers, old and young, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers—how did the war touch their lives? Jenny Uglow, the prizewinning author of The Lunar Men and Nature's Engraver, follows the gripping back-and-forth of the first global war but turns the news upside down, seeing how it reached the people. Illustrated by the satires of Gillray and Rowlandson and the paintings of Turner and Constable, and combining the familiar voices of Austen, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron with others lost in the crowd, In These Times delves into the archives to tell the moving story of how people lived and loved and sang and wrote, struggling through hard times and opening new horizons that would change their country for a century.
