John Kelly has written an excellent narrative history which all history lovers will enjoy reading and learning from. What is important about this book is that it charts the first six months of 1940 while the phoney war was taking place and high politics in Britain and the internal debates could have sent the country in another direction. It must be remembered that at the time Churchill was on the outside and Lord Halifax was pushing for the country to negotiate with Hitler. At the time of this internal debate inside Britain my own Grandfather had already fought, been captured and escaped to France with remnants of the Polish Army. These debates that the British Cabinet had would affect not just the British, but all those gathering at the ports hoping to enter the safety of Britain. It must be remembered at this time the Soviet Union had joined with the Nazis to crush Poland and Germany was turning westward looking to France and the Benelux countries. Kelly covers the pre-war attempts of Chamberlain and his French counterparts to try and ensure peace and their ever failing attempts. The book starts with the 1919 Victory Parade and everything that arose from 1919, while giving a narrative from there to the war, this book does not feel like a narrative of those events but an examination. So we are able to see Churchill not only on the outside of Cabinet, but importantly a Political Outsider, irrelevant to everyone in power. Even his warnings of the ever growing problems of 1930s Germany were ignored in the name of peace and appeasement, which reflected the majority view of the time. With the events happening on mainland Europe in the spring of 1940 saw the rise of Churchill from irrelevance to the man who would be called on to lead Britain. At the same time we read portrayals of all the major political figures in early 1940 and how those early months not only shaped Britain but the British attitude to the Germans and war. John Kelly has drawn upon the use of the War Cabinet Papers now available to be researched, as well as other government documents of the time. He also makes excellent use of newspapers, private diaries and memoirs, which add some of the colour to this outstanding history book. While giving a broad brush to the history of the time and the politics this book is also a great vindication of Churchill and the decision that Britain had to standalone, who stirred the British people to stand and fight. Which they did, when others were too busy making money from the war, but that is another story. An excellent history for all those that want to learn more of that period and of how Churchill came to rise once again.