London at War, 1939-1945London at War, 1939-1945
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Book, 1995
Current format, Book, 1995, 1st American ed, Available .Book, 1995
Current format, Book, 1995, 1st American ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsChronicling the history of World War II in London from the viewpoints of its people, a portrait of a nation under siege is based upon a wealth of interviews, letters, diaries, and publications of the time. 15,000 first printing.
Chronicling the history of World War II in London from the viewpoints of its people, a portrait of a nation under siege is based upon interviews, letters, diaries, and publications of the time
This is the story of London at war from 1939 to 1945, or perhaps of Londoners at war - for Philip Ziegler, best known as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome, yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing, retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always standing up to the authorities; the odiously snobbish middle-class woman from Kensington, sneering at the 'scum' who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham; the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war every bit as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their story.
Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a dazzling portrait of an entire population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record - in story after story - of astonishing patience, dignity and humour. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'
Chronicling the history of World War II in London from the viewpoints of its people, a portrait of a nation under siege is based upon interviews, letters, diaries, and publications of the time
This is the story of London at war from 1939 to 1945, or perhaps of Londoners at war - for Philip Ziegler, best known as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome, yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing, retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always standing up to the authorities; the odiously snobbish middle-class woman from Kensington, sneering at the 'scum' who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham; the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war every bit as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their story.
Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a dazzling portrait of an entire population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record - in story after story - of astonishing patience, dignity and humour. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'
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- New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1995.
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