This book is an oral history of the Irish experience during the Second World War. It brings together all aspects of this experience, from the young banker working on Grafton Street, through the IRA vo
The story of the British Empire in the twentieth century is one of decline, disarray, and despondency. Or so we have been told. In this fresh and controversial account of Britain's end of empire, Benj
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Churchill sought to lead Europe into an integrated union, but just over seventy years later, Britain is poised to vote on leaving the EU. Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon here recounts the fascinating history of Britain's uneasy relationship with the European continent since the end of the war. He shows how British views of the United Kingdom's place within Europe cannot be understood outside of the context of decolonization, the Cold War, and the Anglo-American relationship. At the end of the Second World War, Britons viewed themselves both as the leaders of a great empire and as the natural centre of Europe. With the decline of the British Empire and the formation of the European Economic Community, however, Britons developed a Euroscepticism that was inseparable from a post-imperial nostalgia. Britain had evolved from an island of imperial Europeans to one of post-imperial Eurosceptics.