Fighting the People's War: The British and Commonwealth armies and the Second World War

TY - BOOK

T1 - Fighting the People's War

T2 - The British and Commonwealth armies and the Second World War

AU - Fennell, Jonathan

PY - 2019/1

Y1 - 2019/1

N2 - Fighting the People’s War is an unprecedented, panoramic history of the ‘citizen armies’ of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, who together made up the British and Commonwealth Armies in the Second World War. Drawing on new sources to reveal the true wartime experience of the ordinary rank and file, Jonathan Fennell fundamentally challenges our understanding of the war and of the relationship between conflict and socio-political change. He uncovers how fractures on the home front had profound implications for the performance of the British and Commonwealth Armies and he traces how soldiers’ political beliefs, many of which emerged as a consequence of their combat experience, proved instrumental to the socio-political changes of the postwar era. Fighting the People’s War transforms our understanding of how the great battles were won and lost as well as how the postwar societies were forged.

AB - Fighting the People’s War is an unprecedented, panoramic history of the ‘citizen armies’ of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, who together made up the British and Commonwealth Armies in the Second World War. Drawing on new sources to reveal the true wartime experience of the ordinary rank and file, Jonathan Fennell fundamentally challenges our understanding of the war and of the relationship between conflict and socio-political change. He uncovers how fractures on the home front had profound implications for the performance of the British and Commonwealth Armies and he traces how soldiers’ political beliefs, many of which emerged as a consequence of their combat experience, proved instrumental to the socio-political changes of the postwar era. Fighting the People’s War transforms our understanding of how the great battles were won and lost as well as how the postwar societies were forged.

KW - Second World War

KW - Armies

KW - British Army

KW - Commonwealth countries

KW - Soldiers

U2 - 10.1017/9781139380881

DO - 10.1017/9781139380881

M3 - Book

SN - 9781107609877

SN - 9781107030954

T3 - Armies of the Second World War

BT - Fighting the People's War

PB - Cambridge University Press

CY - Cambridge

ER -