Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War [Kindle Edition]

This book is enthralling, there's no other word for it. It is the most detailed examination of women's lives during the second world war that I have read. I think it paints a candid portrait of what they experienced and how it affected their lives.

There is just enough verbatim recording to give it authenticity and that makes it all the more heartfelt. Parts of it fill you with a sense of outrage at the attitudes that men had towards the women who were putting so much effort into essential work in the forces and out. Times can't be changed, but it is a harsh fact that women were truly undervalued at the time when they were giving most of their time and energy to the war effort.

It is not all doom and gloom; there are some glorious moments of lives enriched by the experience of war.

Helen Forrester's story is one of the most touching: coming from a home where money and love were scarce, she had to go through the pain of losing two fiances (and another nearly so) to the war and in spite of her work never really found her worth until well after the war was over. Iris Ogilvie's experiences in recently re-occupied France belie the tale told by the propaganda photograph of her looking at hats in a Bayeux shop. And if you ever believed those romantic stories about the GIs, this book will dispel most of those myths forever.

The worth of the book lies in its honesty and the feeling the reader gets of what the lives of the various women discussed was like physically and emotionally. I recommend this book to anyone not only with an interest in history, but with an interest in people.

I had read and enjoyed Singled Out by the same author. However I would rate Millions Like Us even more highly. I find books about social history over the ages very interesting. This book does more than such histories generally do; it gives a heartbreaking and deeply empathetic account of the true effect of WW2 on individuals and the population at large. Stories of lost children and fiances are deeply moving and did move me to tears. Ultimately we are taken to the end of the war and shown how most of the women mentioned attained happiness. The amount of work and research which must have gone into the book is breathtaking.

This is a fascinating account of women's role during and after WW2. It is well reasearched and well written with no sexist bias. There is much material that I had not previously known - particularly the problems of GI Brides.