An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War - Brossura

Thomas, Donald

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0719563402 ISBN 13: 9780719563409

Casa editrice: John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2004

Riassunto

The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heroes, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled. The activities of the underworld, extending into a civilian black market and the armed forces, are one of the great untold stories of the Second World War. The profits of civilian racketeering dwarfed the rewards of smash-and-grab or safebreaking, though these continued apace. Professional gangs raided government offices for ration books and underground presses counterfeited petrol and clothing coupons in tens of thousands. The scale of theft in the army was also colossal, with whole consignments of cigarettes, razor-blades and NAAFI stores disappearing. Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to tell the extraordinary tale of these less-heroic Britons. The facts he uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

In this astonishing book Donald Thomas shows, in utterly absorbing detail, just how common ... criminal behaviour was in Britain during the Second World War (Sunday Times)

Thomas has excelled himself. His book is mesmerising and is an unputdownable and brilliantly researched page-turner (Martin Booth, Sunday Times)

If you thought the home front in WWII was about good citizens being decent and upstanding, think again: it was a racketeer's paradise (Time Out)

Donald Thomas has chronicled one of the last untold stories of the war, and he does so with scholarship as well as humour. (Ian Thomson, Spectator)

Donald Thomas has written a quite enchanting book, magnificently researched, and cleverly and wittily presented. He has produced fresh and dazzling insights in British life of sixty years ago (Kevin Myers, Irish Tmes)

Funny and heartening...his eye for detail is inexhaustible (Blake Morrison, The Guardian)

He has produced not just a historical record of a vital and much under appreciated aspect of that great conflict, but a seminal cultural document (Simon Heffer, Literary Review)

Descrizione del libro:

The fascinating, sometimes startling story of crime on the home front, committed under the cover of war.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0719563402
• ISBN 13: 9780719563409
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 448