London at War 1939-1945 - Rilegato

Ziegler, Philip

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0679432981 ISBN 13: 9780679432982

Casa editrice: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1995

Riassunto

This is the story of London at war from 1939 to 1945, or perhaps of Londoners at war - for Philip Ziegler, best known as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome, yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing, retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always standing up to the authorities; the odiously snobbish middle-class woman from Kensington, sneering at the 'scum' who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham; the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war every bit as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their story.
Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a dazzling portrait of an entire population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record - in story after story - of astonishing patience, dignity and humour. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Philip Ziegler was born in 1929 and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he gained first-class honours in Jurisprudence. He then joined the Diplomatic Service and served in Tientiane, Paris, Pretoria and Bogatá before resigning to join the publishers William Collins, where he was editorial director for more than fifteen years. His books have included biographies of William IV, Melbourne, Lady Diana Cooper, Mountbatten and Edward VIII. He lives in London.

Dalla seconda/terza di copertina:

don was not merely the greatest city in the world; it was the most tempting and vulnerable target for aerial attack. For six years it was in the front line of the free world's battle. It endured the horrors of the blitz of 1940 and 1941, and the terrifying new bombs - the V2s, the V2s. Other cities suffered more intensely; no other city was so consistently under attack for so long a time.

This is the story of Londoners at war - for Philip Ziegler, best known as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing, retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always standing up to the authorities; the odiously snobbish woman from Kensington, sneering at the 'scum' who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham; the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war every bit as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their story.&

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0679432981
• ISBN 13: 9780679432982
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 372