Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War

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Manchester University Press, 2002 - History - 282 pages
How well did civilian morale stand up to the pressures of total war and what factors were important to it? This book rejects contentions that civilian morale fell a long way short of the favourable picture presented at the time and in hundreds of books and films ever since. While acknowledging that some negative attitudes and behaviour existed-panic and defeatism, ration-cheating and black-marketeering-it argues that these involved a very small minority of the population. In fact, most people behaved well, and this should be the real measure of civilian morale, rather than the failing of the few who behaved badly. The book shows that although before the war, the official prognosis was pessimistic, measures to bolster morale were taken nevertheless, in particular with regard to protection against air raids. An examination of indicative factors concludes that moral fluctuated but was in the main good, right to the end of the war. In examining this phenomenon, due credit is accorded to government policies for the maintenance of morale, but special emphasis is given to the 'invisible chain' of patriotic feeling that held the nation together during its time of trial.
 

Contents

War imagined
17
A united nation?
22
Preparing for the storm
31
The view from below
39
War experienced September 1939May 1941
45
The Phoney War
46
The Emergency MaySeptember 1940
59
The Big Blitz
68
Stimulating patriotism
161
Easing the strain
186
Food
195
Working conditions
205
Health
207
Recreation and leisure
209
Some essential inessentials
215
Beveridge and all that
221

War experienced 194145
91
Separations
97
Restrictions restrictions
105
Working and not working
119
EXPLANATIONS
139
Persuading the people
141
Controlling the news
142
The propaganda of reassurance
149
Thinking about the future
222
The impact of Beveridge
231
Another sign of things to come?
240
The invisible chain
248
BIBLIOGRAPHY
267
INDEX
275
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