Advance Britannia

Alan Allport has followed up Britannia at Bay with another tour de Force. Advance Britannia ranges widely from the battlefield to the home front, from the cabinet war rooms to factory floors. It is as complete and compelling a picture of Britain in the Second World War as one could hope to read. -- Phillips O'Brien, author * The Strategists *
Allport succeeds in making stories that many of us thought we were familiar with feel fresh, urgent and timely. He has the true storyteller's gift of using a telling detail to make a story many of us thought we knew feel suspenseful. He reminds us that at the time the outcome was far from certain. This is a must read for anyone who is interested in what really happened in World War 2. -- Anne Sebba, author * The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz *
A triumph ... deftly weaving together a wealth of sources, Advance Britannia is the story of imperial, wartime Britain, and how the victories and disasters of those years shaped the post-war world. A 'total history' of Britain's 'total war' -- Lucy Noakes, Professor of Modern History, University of Essex
This book describes the four years during which the second world war was won and, though this was not always obvious at the time, that the British empire was lost. Allport's great achievement is to capture this extraordinary global upheaval without losing sight of the poignant human dramas that were intertwined with it -- Richard Vinen, author * The Long '68 *
There isn't a better history of the Second World War than this remarkably fresh account. It is a history liberated from the pious sentimentalities of both left and right, a story not of a nation but an empire at war, partly with itself. In prose which zings along it authoritatively despatches one myth after another, comes to thoughtful and clear judgements on people and events, and surprises the reader on every page. It is an extraordinary achievement, a book which deserves to be read by all who pretend to know British history. -- David Edgerton
Praise for Alan Allport: 'Allport's wonderfully insightful study asks us to rethink the conventional chronology It is not only refreshingly free of jargon but remarkably moving. If all academic history was written this way, popular historians would be out of a job -- Dominic Sandbrook
Allport has distilled a mass of wisdom, and gathered all manner of truths under one roof, with skill and judgement -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *
A deeply researched, well-written and perceptive book ... This is Second World War writing at its best -- Andrew Roberts