Articles of War The Spectator Book of World War II

by Fiona Glass

This anthology of writings about World War II from the pages of "The Spectator" is the sequel to "Views from Abroad: The Spectator Book of Travel Writing." It concentrates on personal experiences of the war and insights into the attitudes and moods of the time, rather than on strategic or military reports. The selection, arranged chronologically, starts with:

Robert Byron's account of the Nuremberg Rallies
Graham Greene's description of a practice air-raid drill
Young Jo Grimond asks in 1939 what we are fighting for
Julian Huxley chases escaped zebras in London during the Blitz
Rose Macauley loses her library to a bomb
Harold Nicolson in 1941 writes confidently of the Nazis' inevitable doom;
Colin Welch, Iain MacLeod and a German general remember D-Day;
William Deedes and many others recall VE day;
the Beveridge Report offers hope for a bright future;
Louis Macniece, Stephen Spender, Norman Nicolson and Freya Stark offer their views of the war;
Siegfried Sassoon writes on what to read in the war;
Richard Hillary writes on art and the war;
Osbert Lancaster on Christmas in wartime Greece etc.

The book concludes with a section of pen portraits of some of the war's leading figures, including Hitler, Mussolini, Goebbels, Hess, Churchill and Montgomery.

Genres: World War II

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole, an interesting book made up largely of contemporary accounts --- mainly from civilians on the British home front --- which appeared in The Spectator (a British weekly magazine) during the Second World War.

[Bill Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard work but worthwhile in the end