Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain's Finest Hour, May-September 1940

Description

First publication of a unique resource that provides fascinating insight into the mood of the nation - at a crucial time in the Second World War when the conflict's outcome was far from certain From May to September 1940, a period that saw some of the most dramatic events in British history - including the evacuation of Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the opening stages of the Blitz - the Ministry of Information eavesdropped on the conversations of ordinary people in all parts of the United Kingdom and compiled secret daily reports on the state of popular morale.

Paul Addison (Author) Paul Addison teaches history at the University of Edinburgh and is a former visiting Fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford. He is the author of Now the War is Over, a social history of post-war Britain which accompanied an acclaimed BBC television series; and Churchill on the Home Front, described by David Cannadine in the Observer as 'the best one-volume study of Churchill yet available'. Jeremy A Crang (Author) Paul Addison and Jeremy Crang work at the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars at the University of Edinburgh. They are the editors of The Burning Blue (Pimlico, 2000) and Firestorm (Pimlico, 2006), collections of essays on the Battle of Britain and the Allied bombing of Dresden respectively.

The historical value of this evidence is enormous -- Noel Malcolm * The Sunday Telegraph * Digestible form with valuable contextual notes. There are many fleeting gems * Observer * This invaluable book brings us history in real time. With its echo of voices of civilians... Listening to Britain provides a matchless insight into the contradictory, confused and complex experience of living through Britain's "finest hour" -- Juliet Gardiner * Financial Times * [The reports] offer an invaluable and unvarnished insight into thoughts and feelings about events without the benefit of hindsight... I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes reading non-fiction about the war or fiction set at this time * Bookbag.co.uk * Fascinating collection of reports -- Christoper Hirst * Independent *