Peoples’ War?

Some 60 million people died during the Second World War; millions more were displaced in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The war resulted in the creation of new states, the acceleration of imperial decline, and a shift in the distribution of global power. Despite its unprecedented impact, a comprehensive account of the complex international experiences of this war remains elusive.

The Peoples’ War? offers fresh approaches to the challenge of writing a new history of the Second World War. Exploring aspects of the war that have been marginalized in military and political studies, the volume foregrounds less familiar narratives, subjects, and places. Chapters recover the wartime experiences of individuals – including women, children, members of minority ethnic groups, and colonial subjects – whose stories do not fit easily into conventional national war narratives. The contributors show how terms used to delineate the conflict such as home front and battle front, occupier and occupied, captor and prisoner, and friend and foe became increasingly blurred as the war wore on. Above all, the volume encourages reflection on whether this conflict really was a “Peoples’ War.”

Challenging the homogenizing narratives of the war as a nationally unifying experience, The Peoples’ War? seeks to enrich our understanding of the Second World War as a global event.

Alexander Wilson is lecturer in security studies at King’s College London, co-director of the Second World War Research Group for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and a councillor of the Army Records Society.

Richard Hammond is a historian and senior lecturer in the Politics and History Division at Brunel University, London, and a vice-president of the Second World War Research Group.

Jonathan Fennell is a reader in modern history at King’s College London, co-director of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War, and co-founder and president of the Second World War Research Group.