"WWII scholar John Kelly triumphs again" (Vanity Fair) in this
remarkably vivid account of a key moment in Western history: The
critical six months in 1940 when Winston Churchill debated whether
England should fight Nazi Germany--and then decided to "never
surrender."
London in April, 1940, is a place of great fear and conflict. The
Germans have taken Poland, France, Holland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia.
The Nazi war machine now menaces Britain, even as America remains
uncommitted to providing military aid. Should Britain negotiate with
Germany? The members of the War Cabinet bicker, yell, and are divided.
Churchill, leading the faction to fight, and Lord Halifax, cautioning
that prudence is the way to survive, attempt to usurp one another by any
means possible. In Never Surrender, we feel we are alongside these
complex and imperfect men, determining the fate of the British Empire,
and perhaps, the world.
Drawing on the War Cabinet papers, other government documents, private
diaries, newspaper accounts, and memoirs, historian John Kelly tells the
story of the summer of 1940. Kelly takes readers from the battlefield to
Parliament, to the government ministries, to the British high command,
to the desperate Anglo-French conference in Paris and London, to the
American embassy in London, and to life with the ordinary Britons. We
see Churchill seize the historical moment and ultimately inspire his
government, military, and people to fight. Kelly brings to life one of
the most heroic moments of the twentieth century and intimately portrays
some of its largest players--Churchill, Lord Halifax, Hitler, FDR, Joe
Kennedy, and others. Never Surrender is a fabulous, grand narrative of a
crucial period in World War II and the men and women who shaped it. "For
lovers of minute-by-minute history, it's a feast" (Huffington Post).
