By 1942, Churchill faced a vastly different war than the one he’d inherited from Neville Chamberlain. Britain was no longer alone; the Soviets were now an unlikely ally in the East, and Pearl Harbor had finally pushed America into action. Yet the scale of violence remained unchanged. On average, seven British men, women and children were killed every hour of the Second World War. The country would never be the same again.

In Advance Britannia, the sequel/companion to his highly acclaimed Britain at Bay, historian Alan Allport reveals the war as it was lived – from the battlefields to the ration books, in the War Ministry and in the air raid shelters. Mixing social history with dramatic storytelling, this is a definitive account of the war that reshaped the world.

Praise for Britain at Bay:

‘Britain at Bay might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written . . . beautifully written, thoroughly researched and cleverly presented. I put my copy down with deep satisfaction’

—Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, in the Wall Street Journal