One of my favourite books. Great story, told with great pace. I am in shock at the minority of people who do not like this. What on earth is their idea of a good book?

Several reviewers here don't appreciate scholarly writing. Lukacs (and his editor) didn't adulterate concise prose to produce a coffee table book. There are no fictions here; its conclusions are based on carefully and voluminously researched facts. Lukacs HAD to include concrete historical reference; his argument would have been incomplete without it, his conclusions unconvincing.

Yes, he's old fashioned, even Edwardian; he takes care to say only what he knows and nothing more. Yes, the form he insists on for each chapter erects a scaffold that detracts from his aedifice and might better have been removed after construction. His distinction between sentiment and opinion adds little to his argument. But his conclusion is unassailable and as formidable as a Roman arena. If he writes like a scholar, he is one. Those who object should remember that each of us is entitled to one's own style. To hold otherwise is to telegraph envy or confess to low standards.

He might well be the best living historian, for he's a master of his discipline. What he has done here is to write concisely about events that are exhaustively researched and confer new significance. That is what historians are supposed to do. He knows what he's talking about, and, when you finish reading, you know, too.

I bought this book some years ago and have read it twice, gripped both times by the situation Churchill and the UK were in, and by Lukacs' skillful writing. Lukacs succeeded in communicating the intensity of the situation whilst not being portentous. I came back to the book because of Ian Kershaw's latest book which includes as its first issue the same decision: whether or not to seek terms from the Hitler through Mussolini's mediation. I shall be intrigued to see if Kershaw can add anything to Lukacs' account.

A fascinating 'microscopic history' of larger-than-life personalities - Hitler and Churchill. The book gives the reader a real understanding of these few days where the world was held in the balance. A must-read for anyone more than casually interested in WWII.

Hardly anyone remembers the Earl of Halifax, but he had more support among Tory MPs in 1940 than Churchill did, and he probably could have become Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain resigned. Halifax believed that some settlement between Britain and Germany was possible that would allow Britain to preserve its independence. Churchill knew that this was a dangerous illusion.

That's the central conflict of this book: How Churchill, the new PM, won out in the War Cabinet over Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, and brought the politicians and then the public around to the view that Britain could resist Nazism and fight for its independence. Churchill's leadership was far from preordained, and Lukacs shows how he established it.

His writing is superb, and his thinking is sharp. Even when I was unconvinced by one of his points, I found it worth thinking about. And he is excellent in establishing the atmosphere of May 1940, when Britain's future was darker than ever before or since. It's very hard for a historian to get away from presentism, the sense that what came to pass was inevitable, but Lukacs manages it well.

This is the best kind of popular history.

Hardly anyone remembers the Earl of Halifax, but he had more support among Tory MPs in 1940 than Churchill did, and he probably could have become Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain resigned. Halifax believed that some settlement between Britain and Germany was possible that would allow Britain to preserve its independence. Churchill knew that this was a dangerous illusion.

That's the central conflict of this book: How Churchill, the new PM, won out in the War Cabinet over Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, and brought the politicians and then the public around to the view that Britain could resist Nazism and fight for its independence. Churchill's leadership was far from preordained, and Lukacs shows how he established it.

His writing is superb, and his thinking is sharp. Even when I was unconvinced by one of his points, I found it worth thinking about. And he is excellent in establishing the atmosphere of May 1940, when Britain's future was darker than ever before or since. It's very hard for a historian to get away from presentism, the sense that what came to pass was inevitable, but Lukacs manages it well.

This is the best kind of popular history.

This book was a big disappointment. It's premise is that the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax was willing to consider a negotiated settlement with Hitler while Churchill thought that even consideration of a settlement would be the beginning of a "slippery slope" leading to conditional surrender. So far so good, but Lukacs tells the story with no drama and liberally pads it with boilerplate descriptions of the course of the Second World War in the first half of 1940. I suspect he lifted these from his other published works. The book just doesn't have enough original content to be worth reading.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I went in with high expectations: I'd never read Lukacs, but my understanding was that his reputation was good. At a minimum, he's published a lot. Moreover, I liked the idea of an events-oriented narrative confined to a short, narrow time frame. What should have been high drama, however, was almost painful to finish. Plainly put, the book is boring.


As for (somewhat) related works: I'm not familiar with Churchill and this period, although I've read a bit of his memoirs and found them pretty good. A recent World War II read that I thought deserved its Pulitzer was Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn.

This book is hard to put down. I have read it twice and will, no doubt, read it again.

It is the story of a 5 day period when freedom hung in the balance. In May, 1940, as France was collapsing, British leaders were debating whether Britain would fight on or sue for peace. Winston Churchill, the newly installed prime minister wanted to fight on, but forces within the government and within the Conservative party wanted to treat with Hitler. Politically, Churchill's position was shaky. In the end, he prevailed, but he would probably have agreed with Wellington that it was a near run thing.

Lukacs writes beautifully. His treatment of the players in the 20th Century's most critical drama is fair and understanding. Anyone who is interested in the Second World War should read this book. Anyone who values freedom must read it. Had Britain made peace with Hitler, there would have been no Normandy invasion and Europe would not be free today. How close we came to the abyss is both frightening and educational.

A fascinating period in history that begs for a page turning dramatic rendering is here so turgidly presented that it is difficult to stay awake while reading this. The facts are here but the writing is awful.