The Road to 1945 is a rigorously researched study of the crucial moment when political parties put aside their differences to unite under Churchill and focus on the task of war. But the war years witnessed a radical shift in political power - dramatically expressed in Labour's decisive electoral victory in 1945. In his acclaimed study, Paul Addison reconstructs and interprets the five-year wartime coalition, and traces this sea-change from its roots in the thirties, to the powerful spirit of post-war rebuilding. The Road to 1945 is an imaginative, brilliantly written and landmark work, underpinned by a powerful and expertly researched argument.
1940 has long been regarded as the time when political parties put aside their differences to unite under Churchill and focus on the task of war. But the war years witnessed a radical shift in political power - dramatically expressed in Labour's decisive electoral victory in 1945.
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year “Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal “Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —The Boston Globe Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy. Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
World War II marked a crucial watershed in the political history of modern Britain. This book seeks to explain, through the eyes of contemporaries, how the transition occurred from the Conservative enterprise society of the 1930s to Labour's welfare state and mixed economy of the late 1940s. War and Reform also addresses the question of how the political changes of this period affected British society as a whole and how much public opinion itself shaped change.
The seventh volume of the acclaimed, official biography: “An engrossing history of Churchill’s crucial role in the grand alliance of World War II” (Los Angeles Times). This seventh volume in the epic, multivolume biography of Winston S. Churchill takes up the story of “Churchill’s War” with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and carries it on to the triumph of V-E Day, May 8, 1945, the end of the war in Europe. Acclaimed historian Martin Gilbert charts Churchill’s course through the storms of Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet rivalry, and between the conflicting ambitions of other forces embattled against the common enemy: between General de Gaulle, his compatriots in France, and the French Empire; between Tito and other Yugoslav leaders; between the Greek Communists and monarchists; between the Polish government exiled in London and the Soviet-controlled “Lublin” Poles. Amid all these volatile concerns, Churchill had to find the path of prudence, of British national interest, and, above all, of the earliest possible victory over Nazism. In doing so he was guided by the most secret sources of British Intelligence: the daily interception of the messages of the German High Command. These pages reveal, as never before, the links between this secret information and the resulting moves and successes achieved by the Allies. “A milestone, a monument, a magisterial achievement . . . rightly regarded as the most comprehensive life ever written of any age.” —Andrew Roberts, historian and author of The Storm of War “The most scholarly study of Churchill in war and peace ever written.” —Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times
Using travel magazines, trade journals and diaries, this text explores the use of cars in America and shows how autocamping as an inexpensive, individualistic recreational sport gave birth to the motel, a nationally standardized roadside business.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Economist • The Christian Science Monitor • Bloomberg Businessweek • The Globe and Mail From the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I. The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalisms, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world. The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer hard work, to stave off the coming chaos in his empire; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife; in Britain, King Edward VII, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and British admiral Jacky Fisher, the fierce advocate of naval reform who entered into the arms race with Germany that pushed the continent toward confrontation on land and sea. There are the would-be peacemakers as well, among them prophets of the horrors of future wars whose warnings went unheeded: Alfred Nobel, who donated his fortune to the cause of international understanding, and Bertha von Suttner, a writer and activist who was the first woman awarded Nobel’s new Peace Prize. Here too we meet the urbane and cosmopolitan Count Harry Kessler, who noticed many of the early signs that something was stirring in Europe; the young Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty and a rising figure in British politics; Madame Caillaux, who shot a man who might have been a force for peace; and more. With indelible portraits, MacMillan shows how the fateful decisions of a few powerful people changed the course of history. Taut, suspenseful, and impossible to put down, The War That Ended Peace is also a wise cautionary reminder of how wars happen in spite of the near-universal desire to keep the peace. Destined to become a classic in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, The War That Ended Peace enriches our understanding of one of the defining periods and events of the twentieth century. Praise for The War That Ended Peace “Magnificent . . . The War That Ended Peace will certainly rank among the best books of the centennial crop.”—The Economist “Superb.”—The New York Times Book Review “Masterly . . . marvelous . . . Those looking to understand why World War I happened will have a hard time finding a better place to start.”—The Christian Science Monitor “The debate over the war’s origins has raged for years. Ms. MacMillan’s explanation goes straight to the heart of political fallibility. . . . Elegantly written, with wonderful character sketches of the key players, this is a book to be treasured.”—The Wall Street Journal “A magisterial 600-page panorama.”—Christopher Clark, London Review of Books
Drawing on a wealth of new sources, this work documents the evolving relationship between Moscow and Peking in the twentieth century. Using newly available Russian and Chinese archival documents, memoirs written in the 1980s and 1990s, and interviews with high-ranking Soviet and Chinese eyewitnesses, the book provides the basis for a new interpretation of this relationship and a glimpse of previously unknown events that shaped the Sino-Soviet alliance. An appendix contains translated Chinese and Soviet documents - many of which are being published for the first time. The book focuses mainly on Communist China's relationship with Moscow after the conclusion of the treaty between the Soviet Union and Kuomingtang China in 1945, up until the signing of the treaty between Moscow and the Chinese Communist Party in 1950. It also looks at China's relationship with Moscow from 1920 to 1945, as well as developments from 1950 to the present. The author reevaluates existing sources and literature on the topic, and demonstrates that the alliance was reached despite disagreements and distrust on both sides and was not an inevitable conclusion. He also shows that the relationship between the two Communist parties was based on national interest politics, and not on similar ideological convictions.
