Book description
It was, of course, the Battle of Britain, or rather its conclusion,
that prompted one of Winston Churchill's most memorable pieces of
oratory that has its epitome in the sentence, 'Never in the field of
human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.' If the Battle
of Britain had been lost it is very likely the New Order to which the
Axis powers had pledged themselves would have become global with
unthinkable consequences for the world afterwards. The importance of
the Battle of Britain cannot be exaggerated though inevitably in the
succeeding years the accretion of myth has brought about many
distortions. This multi-faceted symposium emerged from the Centre of
Second World War Studies at Edinburgh University with the aim, in the
words of the editors, 'to reassess established themes while opening up
new ones.' After a masterly introduction by Brian Bond, the book is
divided into six parts: Before the Battle; The Battle; The View from
Afar; Experience and Memory; The Making of a British Legend and The
Significance. The contributors are: Klaus A. Maier; Malcolm Smith;
Horst Boog; Sebastian Cox; Sergei Kudryshov; Richard P. Hallion;
Theodore F. Cook; Hans-Ekkehard Bob; Wallace Cunningham; Nigel Rose;
Owen Dudley Edwards; Angus Calder; Tony Aldgate; Adrian Gregory;
Jeremy Lake and John Schofield; Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang and
Richard Overy. No survey could be more wide-ranging or fascinating.
First published in 2000 to mark the 60th anniversary, it is now being
reissued in 2010 to mark the 70th anniversary. 'But it is terrific.
It's not only an acknowledgement of the heroism of the fighter pilots
(and all the ancillary crew), but a serious contribution to the
historical record. Seventeen contributors write about the Battle from
pretty much every conceivable angle; and Addison and Crang have chosen
them well. . . This is not an automatically worshipful book; it poses
questions about the morality of war, the existence of heroism, the
reliability of memory. But it treats the subject honestly and with
justice. And it tells us why we won: because, it would appear, it
helps to come from a society that is sceptical of authority rather
than in blind, unthinking terror of it.' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
'This book is a first-class piece of work, stimulating, informative
and concise.' Brian Holden Reid, Times Higher Education Supplement.
'This is a nugget of a book . . . it assembles, most readably, a range
of authoritative and international views on the Battle, its history,
and its significance.' Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon, Royal
United Services Institute 'This is a much told story, but the varied
viewpoints of the 20 contributors to Burning Blue - ranging from a
fascinating essay by Owen Dudley Edwards on the air war as reflected
in children's literaturer to the memories of pilots who fought in it
on both sides - give an impressive breadth and depth. And even though
it strips away hindsight and refuses to burnish legends, what is left
is still one of the most remarkable stories in the whole of British
history. The British empire didn't last a thousand years, but the man
was right: this truly was its finest hour.' David Robinson, The Scotsman
Paul Addison, born 1943, is a historian based at the University of
Edinburgh. His interests lie in the social and political history of
twentieth-century Britain. The author of many books, his Churchill on
the Home Front, 1900-1955 and Now the War is Over: A Social History of
Britain, 1945-1951 are being reissued in Faber Finds. As is The Burning
Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain which he co-edited with
Jeremy Crang. His latest book, published by The Oxford University Press,
is No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-war Britain.
Jeremy Crang is the Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of
Two World Wars at the University of Edinburgh. With Paul Addison he has
either co-edited or co-written The Burning Blue: A New History of the
Battle of Britain (reissued in Faber Finds), Firestorm: The Bombing of
Dresden, 1945, and most recently, Listening to Britain: Home
Intelligence Reports on Britain's Finest Hour, May-September 1940.
