Finest Hour: The bestselling story of the Battle of Britain

Description

Seventy years ago, as Hitler's army continued its relentless advance across Europe, Britain - a country ill-prepared for war - faced its darkest hour. Acclaimed as 'Brilliant' by the Daily Mail and 'Compelling' by the Telegraph, Finest Hour recreates the terror, tragedy and triumph of the Battle of Britain through the testimony of the very men and women who were there. Taken from the diaries, letters and memoirs of those who survived it - and those who lost their lives - Finest Hour creates a powerful and incisive account of the events of 1940. Containing individual accounts of love and loss by these witnesses of war, the book also contains a provocative analysis of the conflicts and the politics of the period, and questions some cherished national myths. Cutting through the nostalgic haze, Finest Hour enables readers to experience a time when a nation's darkest hour became its finest.

Phil Craig is a distinguished independent producer of political and historical documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated The Flight that Fought Back. Tim Clayton, a former research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, is a leading specialist is eighteenth-century history and culture and the author of numerous articles and books. Craig and Clayton first met in 1978 while at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Brilliant ... This highly informative, moving series should form part of the National Curriculum. - Daily Mail Beautifully made ... Achingly vivid. - Guardian Compelling ... Mesmerizing stuff. - Sunday Telegraph Manages to construct the tale in such a way that it breaks free of the text-book approach to transfix the viewer completely; the archive footage, the witness testimonies ... of such superior quality and so beautifully shot that the whole is fresh and absorbing ... Compiled with a pace that could put a lot of thrillers to shame, the result is television at its very best. - Time Out From fighter-pilots risking their lives in the skies above England, to squaddies stranded at Dunkirk, to schoolgirls sent abroad to Canada (the book is worth buying just for Bess Walder's account of horror and redemption aboard the City of Benares), this is riveting. - Sunday Express