Overview

The untold story of how Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party envisioned Britain's post-war futureWe think we know all there is to know about Britain's Second World War. We don't. This radical re-interpretation of British history and British Conservatism between 1939 and 1945 reveals the bold, at times utopian, plans British Conservatives drew up for Britain and the post-war world. From proposals for world government to a more united Empire via dreams of a new Christian elite and a move back-to-the-land, Blue Jerusalem reveals how Conservatives were every bit as imaginative and courageous as their Labour and left-wing opponents in their wartime plans for a post-war world.Bringing these alternative visions of Britain's post-war future back to life, Blue Jerusalem restores politics to the centre of the story of Britain's war. It demonstrates how everything from the weapons Britain fought with, to the theatres in which the fighting took place and the allies Britain chose were the product of political decisions about the different futures Conservatives wanted to make. Rejecting notions of a 'people's war' that continue to cloud how we think of World War II, it explores how the Tories used their control of the home and battle front to fight a deeply Conservative war and build the martial, imperial, and Christian nation many that many of a Conservative disposition had long dreamed of. A study of political thinking as well as political manoeuvre, Blue Jerusalem goes beyond an examination of the usual suspects - such as Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain - to reveal a hitherto lost world of British Conservativism and a set of forgotten futures that continue to shape our world.

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9780198868491

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Reviews

Kit Kowol's study of Conservatism during the war years is historical scholarship at its best: learned, balanced, fluent and provocative. He made me look at the politics of the 1940s in an entirely new light, overturning many of the things I'd taken for granted. A wonderful book; I enjoyed it enormously. * Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-presenter of 'The Rest is History' podcast *

Kit Kowol's study of Conservatism during the war years is historical scholarship at its best: learned, balanced, fluent and provocative. He made me look at the politics of the 1940s in an entirely new light, overturning many of the things I'd taken for granted. A wonderful book; I enjoyed it enormously. * Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-presenter of 'The Rest is History' podcast * A veritable abattoir of sacred cows, Blue Jerusalem takes everything you thought you knew about British domestic politics during the Second World War and turns it on its head. A generation of historians has marginalized or simply ignored Tory political thinking in those vital years, but Kit Kowol has discovered that it was suffused with genuine radicalism. This is revisionist history at its deeply-researched, well-written best, and of course could not be more timely. * Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny *

Author Information

Kit Kowol received his DPhil in Politics from Oxford University in 2014. He subsequently taught and researched at Teesside University, Christ Church (University of Oxford), and King's College London, where he was an Early Career Development Fellow in Modern British History. He now lives and works in Brisbane, Australia.

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