Product Description

Juliet Gardiner’s critically acclaimed book – the first in a generation to tell the people’s story of the Second World War – offers a compelling and comprehensive account of the pervasiveness of war on the Home Front. The book has been commended for its inclusion of many under-described aspects of the Home Front, and alongside familiar stories of food shortages, evacuation and the arrival of the GIs, are stories of Conscientious Objectors, persecuted Italians living in Britain and Lumber Jills working in the New Forest. Drawing on a multitude of sources, many previously unpublished, she tells the story of those six gruelling years in voices from the Orkney Islands to Cornwall, from the Houses of Parliament to the Nottinghamshire mines. (20041010)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17345 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 800 pages

Scotland On Sunday (Angus Calder)
'Irresistably unputdownable'

Review
'Juliet Gardiner's 'Wartime' provides a marvellously rich, and often entertaining, recreation of life on the Home Front, 1939-45, drawing on an enormous range of oral testimony and memoir.' (The Scotsman 20041126)

'From lost loves to crabby children to the sorrow of receiving the worst possible news, this is a remarkably personal picture of wartime life at home.' (The Good Book Guide 20050412)

'Irresistably unputdownable' (Scotland On Sunday (Angus Calder) )

'Danger, courage, deprivation, exhaustion, fear, humour and that old enemy 'boredom' were endured for six years. This exhilarating book is the voice of these people.' (Despatches )

'humorous and deeply moving' (Despatches )

'In a book replete with treasures, everyone will find a special jewel.' (The Times Literary Supplement (David Stafford) )

'Juliet Gardiner's book is ...wonderfully readable' (BBC History Magazine )

'after the torrents of film and forests of print devoted to her subject over the last four decades, it is exhilarating that Gardiner finds so many under-described aspects of the Home Front to document through her fresh witnesses.' (BBC History Magazine )

'utterly gripping' (The Spectator )

'Gardiner explores every aspect of the British home front, and presents these deeply moving moments superbly. I have no doubt that 'Wartime' will become the seminal work on Britain at war.' (Daily Mail (Max Arthur) )

'Plenty of nostalgia and war-time spirit in this comprehensive account of life on the Home Front' (The Veteran )

The Times Literary Supplement (David Stafford)
'In a book replete with treasures, everyone will find a special jewel.'

Customer Reviews

Readable Writing
Juliet Gardiner knows how to write readably. She keeps her language simple and her sentences short. She has a keen eye for a good quote. Best of all, she knows that a story can be made more interesting by hanging it on people. She hangs hers on many people - her subject, after all, is the People's War. And she develops it by lacing together a daisy chain of memorable anecdotes. This book is an entertaining read from beginning to end - and the further you read, the better it gets. A wonderful read!

Excellently Researched History of WW2 from the Home Front
For a post-war baby, this book is perfect in helping me understand what my parents went through. This is not a dry and dusty historical tome, but a lively record of people's words and thoughts carefully gathered into chapters on rationing, evacuation, the Home Guard etc.
It is also, surprisingly, very funny - with typical English eccentricities managing to survive the war.
I am amazed by what the people put up with in terms of impositions from the Government - many of whose decisions seemed (as they still are today!), illogical and irrelevant.
A highly recommended book which sheds light on a chapter of history that our parents were reluctant or unable to discuss with us.

A very worthwhile book...
This is a history of the Second World War, not of the campaigns and the battles, but of the Home Front. Each chapter deals with a different theme - evacuation, rationing, the Blitz, crime, women in the workplace, air raid shelters, propaganda, the media, the Home Guard etc. It's very well-written, very readable and includes a great deal of quotes and anecdotes from diaries, letters, interviews and surveys from the time. It really makes you realise what hell people went through, and how the Home Front was in its own way as dangerous as the real battle in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific. A very worthwhile book.