On average, seven British men, women and children were killed every hour that the Second World War lasted. It inflicted violence on this country on a scale which makes even the worst terrorist atrocities and natural catastrophes that have occurred since pale into insignificance. And when the dust cleared, the world would never be the same again.
In the second of a major new two-volume history of the war, historian Alan Allport explores every aspect of the conflict, from military tactics to rationing and the echoes of our own age. Mixing the eye for social detail of David Kynaston with the dramatic sweep of Anthony Beevor, this is a definitive account of a clash between civilisations that re-shaped our world.