- Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: John Murray; New edition edition (11 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0719566029
- ISBN-13: 978-0719566028
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 413,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
'An ambitious enterprise, and Waller brings it off admirably - a sort of Bayeux Tapestry' (The Times 20050429)
'A wonderfully vivid panorama of a thrilling time' (Scotsman 20050424)
'Meticulously researched account imbues the second-world-war era with a matchless sense of immediacy' (Sunday Times 20050422)
'Magisterial ... a fine account in which sober analysis is combined with a mass of memorable and emotive information' (Daily Mail )
'Fascinating, impressive and meticulously researched ... a treasure trove' (Daily Express )
'This copiously researched, anecdote-filled book is one of the best [titles focusing on particular dates or periods in London's history]' (Sunday Times )
'You can't help reading this and thinking: this is what it was really like' (Guardian )
'A wonderfully vivid and evocative portrait' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Maureen Waller's social history of the capital in the final year of war is utterly gripping in its portrait of a population that "could not be talked down to."' (Telegraph )
'One of the many strengths of Waller's engrossing survey of London life through the long twilight of war and the chilly dawn of peace is her attention to the rough times, not rosy nostalgia.' (Independent )
'Waller vividly recreates the city during those 12 months of transition between war and peace and provides a compelling account of how Londoners reacted to destruction and deprivation and prepared to rebuild what had been lost.' (Sunday Times )
'This is a rich, evocative protrait of London amid the death throes of war.' (Daily Mail )
'A wonderfully vivid panorama of a thrilling time' (Scotsman 20050424)
'Meticulously researched account imbues the second-world-war era with a matchless sense of immediacy' (Sunday Times 20050422)
'Magisterial ... a fine account in which sober analysis is combined with a mass of memorable and emotive information' (Daily Mail )
'Fascinating, impressive and meticulously researched ... a treasure trove' (Daily Express )
'This copiously researched, anecdote-filled book is one of the best [titles focusing on particular dates or periods in London's history]' (Sunday Times )
'You can't help reading this and thinking: this is what it was really like' (Guardian )
'A wonderfully vivid and evocative portrait' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Maureen Waller's social history of the capital in the final year of war is utterly gripping in its portrait of a population that "could not be talked down to."' (Telegraph )
'One of the many strengths of Waller's engrossing survey of London life through the long twilight of war and the chilly dawn of peace is her attention to the rough times, not rosy nostalgia.' (Independent )
'Waller vividly recreates the city during those 12 months of transition between war and peace and provides a compelling account of how Londoners reacted to destruction and deprivation and prepared to rebuild what had been lost.' (Sunday Times )
'This is a rich, evocative protrait of London amid the death throes of war.' (Daily Mail )
Daily Mail
'Magisterial ... a fine account in which sober analysis is combined with a mass of memorable and emotive information'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
At some time Waller asks "Was this only 60 years ago?". Which is undeniably amazing that life could have been so incredibly different such a very short time ago, and in one of the main capitals of the world to boot. It's a surprisingly easy read and covers most aspects of life in wartime London, specifically 1945. This is well researched history interpersed with lively anecedotes. I wish I had read this when I was living in London to realise what a tumultuous change the war wrought on the physical and pychological landscape of a people and their city.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Meticulously researched and packed with eyewitness accounts, this wonderful book brings home what life was like for war-weary Londoners in the last months of WW2.
The 1945 map of the City of London inside sets the scene perfectly and puts into context the appalling state that the City was in. It also makes you wonder how modern Londoners would cope with such hard times - bearing how the city grinds to a halt during a couple of inches of snow or a heavy rainstorm.
The 1945 map of the City of London inside sets the scene perfectly and puts into context the appalling state that the City was in. It also makes you wonder how modern Londoners would cope with such hard times - bearing how the city grinds to a halt during a couple of inches of snow or a heavy rainstorm.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This delivers so much more than the title suggests. It keeps to its title theme while managing to cover the social, economic, political and - especially - the human stories that lead to that point in time and then illustrates through engrossing detail what life in 1945 was really like. Though the information is London based, it translates readily to many of the UK's other wartime cities and beyond. Themed chapters (around topics such as family life and the strain on relationships, housing and bomb shelters, information and propoganda, the black market and wartime crime, how VE day and VJ day happened, working and leisure etc) all come alive with absorbing accounts and practical details that get further under the skin of the subject than all those books and programmes that mean you think you know about this already! Thoroughly recommended
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Thoroughly researched and readable
A very thorough perspective of London in the final year of the war. The deprivation and hardship people suffered is hard to imagination in our era of cheap food and obesity! Read more
Published on 11 July 2007 by SueBee
Simple, but compelling
An excellent portrait of life in London as the end of the war approached. Told primarily from a female perspective (hardly surprising given that the author is a woman, and many of... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2005 by Mark Barnes
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