The People's War

Juliet Gardiner investigates two new books on wartime society in Britain during the Second World War.

Juliet Gardiner | Published in 20 Oct 2003
  • Which People’s War?
    National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain,   1939-1945
    Sonya O. Rose
    Oxford University Press  342pp.  £30  ISBN 0-19-925572 -5
    HISTORY TODAY BOOKSHOP PRICE £26
  • An Underworld at War
    Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War
    Donald Thomas
    John Murray   445pp.  £20  ISBN 0-7195-5732 1
    HISTORY TODAY BOOKSHOP PRICE £18

The People’s War has become the signifying concept for the Second World War. Civilians became combatants on the front line – the entire citizenry and resources of the nation were mobilised for a war in which over 67,500 civilians were killed. But when it first gained currency in 1940 the phrase was political and strategic as well as descriptive. Probably coined by Tom Wintringham, an ex-Communist, Spanish Civil War veteran, the naming of a people’s war did battle for a people’s peace when shared sacrifice would lead to equality of entitlement.

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