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  • Published: 15 February 1994
  • ISBN: 9780712659321
  • Imprint: Pimlico
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $55.00

The Road To 1945

British Politics and the Second World War Revised Edition




A comprehensive and intelligent study of British politics in the period surrounding the Second World War.

The Road to 1945 is a rigorously researched study of the crucial moment when political parties put aside their differences to unite under Churchill and focus on the task of war. But the war years witnessed a radical shift in political power - dramatically expressed in Labour's decisive electoral victory in 1945.

In his acclaimed study, Paul Addison reconstructs and interprets the five-year wartime coalition, and traces this sea-change from its roots in the thirties, to the powerful spirit of post-war rebuilding.

The Road to 1945 is an imaginative, brilliantly written and landmark work, underpinned by a powerful and expertly researched argument.

  • Published: 15 February 1994
  • ISBN: 9780712659321
  • Imprint: Pimlico
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $55.00

About the author

Paul Addison

Paul Addison teaches history at the University of Edinburgh and is a former visiting Fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford. He is the author of Now the War is Over, a social history of post-war Britain which accompanied an acclaimed BBC television series; and Churchill on the Home Front, described by David Cannadine in the Observer as 'the best one-volume study of Churchill yet available'.

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Praise for The Road To 1945

'The best and most comprehensive account of British politics immediately before, during, and immediately after the Second World War

Guardian

What I find most striking is the beauty of his prose, the force of his argument, and the awesome and painstaking research that underpins it. Although I still do not agree with him, it is one hell of an achievement, and one that has not been matched since

Harriet Jones, Times Education Supplement

This is a landmark in the writing of contemporary history and deserves wide acclaim

Times Literary Supplement

Many books have been written about the Home Front. Few have dealt with the development of policies at the top. Addison's book fills the gap magnificently. It tells with wit, scholarship and imagination how the British people entered the Promised Land - or seemed to

A.J.P. Taylor, Observer

This is a brilliant book. It is probably the most intelligent monograph on a recent period of British politics

John Vincet, New Society