Product Description

‘This is the room from which I will direct the war,’ Churchill declared, shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940. And he did just that, as the distinguished Churchill biographer Richard Holmes explains in the first history of the Cabinet War Rooms. It was from these cramped, uncongenial confines that Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Yet he was not working deep in a distant forest or hidden in a walled-off suburb: he was in the very heart of the capital, within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Built in 1938 as a temporary refuge in case of air raid attack, this secret bunker became a second home to Churchill – and to large numbers of military personnel and civil servants whose work until now has been largely unsung. Here was the Map Room that charted the advances and retreats of armies, the locations of warships and the often painful progress of the convoys that kept the nation supplied. Here the planners worked on future operations and the intelligence staff pondered the enemy’s next moves. And all this work was known only to those who needed to know. Drawing on a fascinating range of original material, including new first-hand accounts of the people who lived there, Holmes reveals how and why the bunker and its war machine developed; how the inhabitants’ lives were transformed; and how their work led to victory. Elegant and illuminating, Churchill’s Bunker is a unique exploration of one of the most important sites in British history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76165 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
'Worthy and evocative'
--Vernon Bogdanor, FT

"Holmes accomplishes much in little space. He gives a readable and cogent description...He successfully recreates the atmosphere of the place" --Geoffrey Best, History Today

"Fascinating" --Tim Newark, Time Out

Review
`Intriguing' - Christopher Silvester, Daily Express

Review
'Scholarly but accessible...[Holmes] keeps things lively and colourful...' - Daniel Bentley, Press Association

Customer Reviews

Another superb book from Richard Holmes
This is must for all historians, London tourists interested by this super piece of our history as well as scholars of Churchill. I use some of Richard Holmes work as reference for my lectures and workshops on effective leadership recommending his books to my delegates and I have used the London 'bunker' as a venue for a management learning event. That was an incredible experience and Richard Holmes has tapped in to the life and rhythm of the location during those crucial years. A really superb account and another excellent piece of work from this great historian.

Professor Holmes Writes Again
Having taken pupils around the "Bunker" on numerous occasions this book offers a further insight to that period of history that has only fairly recently been public. The War Rooms, and indeed the Tunnels of Dover Castle, help visualise the enormous spread of a World War and our 'darkest Hour'. There is also a sentiment of nostalgia and a 'toe dip' into a National pride that today we only see on the big occasion - often sport. The Nostalgia is a by-product of the book knowing my parents lived through this and, as I age, the fact it was only 10 years before I was born.
Richard Holmes is always readable and, as with all his books, a historians friend, bringing an era shape, form and as it is reality.

a really good read
If you are interested in the last war, Winston Churchill and the history of this country and how we remained British and free, then please read this book, and get your children to read it, as they are sadly lacking in the recent history of this once great country of ours,and its great leaders. I lived through it all as a small child, and only now realise just what went on..and how very very lucky we were.