From statesmen and military commanders to ordinary Britons, a bold, sweeping history of Britain's entrance into World War II—and its efforts to survive it—illuminating the ways in which the war permanently transformed a nation and its people “Might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written.” —The Wall Street JournalHere is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict’s first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles pressing questions such as whether the war could have been avoided, how it could have been lost, how well the British lived up to their own values, and ultimately, what difference the war made to the fate of the nation. In answering these questions, he reexamines our assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of the ways in which the Second World War transformed British culture and society. This bracing account draws on a lively cast of characters—from the political and military leaders who made the decisions, to the ordinary citizens who lived through them—in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. A sweeping and groundbreaking epic, Britain at Bay gives us a fresh look at the opening years of the war, and illuminates the integral moments that, for better or for worse, made Britain what it is today.

List of Illustrations List of Maps Foreword A Note on Money   Part One: The British Way and Purpose 1. Shire Folk 2. Ulster Kristallnacht 3. A Different Kind of Nation 4. The School of Empire   Part Two: Umbrella Man 5. Guilty Man 6. The Bones of a British Grenadier 7. The Stupidest Thing That Has Ever Been Done 8. To Make Gentle the Life of the World 9. The Sharpening of the Claws   Part Three: Companions in Misfortune 10. The Other Dunkirk 11. Class War 12. Bras-Dessus, Bras-Dessous 13. In the Name of God 14. A Certain Eventuality   Part Four: And Only England Stands 15. Lunatic Relief 16. All Our Past Proclaims Our Future 17. Margins 18. The Scouring of the Shire Folk   Part Five: ‘A New and Most Bitter Phase of the War’ 19. American Lebensraum 20. Shapeless, Measureless Peril 21. The Carotid Artery of Empire 22. Taking the Gloves Off 23. March on to Better Days   Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements Index