The first of two volumes, Daniel Todman's Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937–1941 is a panoramic analysis of Britain's greatest challenge since 1066. Todman's is a serious book, but it is written with panache and a subtle sense of humor. His father, born in May 1945, was named Victor, assuring “that he would spend the rest of his life as a war memorial” (2). Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin spent the 1920s “house-training his party against the inclinations of its more reactionary members” (39). Judicious playfulness similarly prevails on the level of style, such as when Todman writes “demobbed” (demobilized) without quotation marks to describe soldiers’ return to civilian life.

Todman's title might cause readers and World War II enthusiasts alike to shrug dismissively, “So what? Everyone knows the story that begins with Munich and churns on through Poland, the ‘Bore War,’ the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and North Africa.” Britain's War, however, begins with the coronation of George VI. Then it treads lightly on some of the more familiar territory, perhaps because Todman's intent goes beyond rehashing the stories that have been the staples of movies, popular books, military histories, and the History Channel. Rather, Todman's achievement is having woven together narratives that are usually told, if at all, as separate threads. He challenges the reader to look at events and trends through various lenses including strategic, political, economic, social, military, and cultural ones. Taken together, his stories link the home front with the battlefront in complex ways that increase our understanding of this “total war.” Todman's performance in writing this book is impressive. He organizes the material under descriptive chapter and subchapter headings so as frequently to foreshadow important events and to help the reader maintain orientation in the midst of an exceedingly complex narrative. The brief summaries he provides at the start of each chapter help as well.

Britain's War is not a “hero as history” approach to the period, neither in the sense of focusing on heroic individuals nor on the heroic Britons’ struggle against Nazi Germany. Todman specifically rejects viewing 1940 through the lens of “their finest hour.” The major accomplishment of that year and the next was survival—still standing after the fall of France, misadventures in Norway, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz. Surviving but not thriving. This was the last time, he argues, that Britain's power influenced “the future of the world” (5).

Like many readers, when I approach a book about this period of British history, one of the things I look at is the author's treatment of Winston Spencer Churchill. Who else but a Nobel prizewinner in literature would dare to claim that he expected to be treated well in history “for I intend to write it”? Todman provides evidence of Churchill's intention by noting that, during the period of the “Bore War,” he bombarded his cabinet colleagues with minutes and letters: “Having offered his opinion on everything, Churchill would be able to pick selectively to prove … how he had won the war” (204). Churchill's six volumes of memoirs about World War II, notable for their style and narrative flow, are nevertheless mightily concerned with his leadership, his laser-like decision making, and his glorification.

By all accounts Churchill's political career from 1900 to 1940 was a checkered one, but from 1939 to 1945 he helped Britain overcome the Death's Head juggernaut. Even so, serious historical accounts of Churchill during these years fall on a continuum from fawning to disparaging. Todman's treatment of Churchill lands somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, perhaps a step in the direction of disparaging. For instance, he mostly ignores those famous Churchill speeches. Nevertheless, Todman acknowledges that shortly after Churchill began his “Finest Hour” broadcasts, his standing with the British public soared as measured by the British Institute of Public Opinion, the British version of the American Gallup Poll. Todman is especially critical of Churchill's short-sightedness as regards India's role in World War II (and much else), but gives him kudos for his tenacity and effectiveness in regard to securing American support and courting Franklin Roosevelt.

As befitting a book about “total war,” Todman's Britain's War investigates the impact and conduct of the war from the top to the bottom of British society. An old Austrian-born professor of mine loved to say, in his soft accent, “Some histories are about drums and trumpets. I prefer those about bums and strumpets.” Todman might cheerfully agree; he carefully interweaves the experiences, evaluations, and contributions of a wide swath of Britons. One of the ways he accomplishes this is by using commentaries from Mass Observation and the British Institute of Public Opinion polls. His use of these sources helps to ground his analysis of how non-elite Britons were experiencing and evaluating the cavalcade of events. I await the publication of his second volume with eagerness.