Ewan Butler (1911–1974)

We recently watched the stupendous movie of Dunkirk so I felt obliged to learn a little more about the event. Chose this book as it was written fairly contemporarily, 10 years after, and by a participant. The book is nicely written - somewhat archaic language even for its time, and at times even a little poetically. No grand strategy here but a comprehensive coverage across the participants - Army - BEF, Navy, RAF, the civilian sailors, and the French.

Not too long a book and an excellent show more reasonably detailed overview starting in late 1939 when the BEF went to France and concludes, just after the lads got home after the 'miracle'.

An interesting perspective was on the RAF - typically disparaged as in "where's the bloody RAF?" - whom he couldn't lay enough praise on. Interestingly, he felt the heavily outnumbered flyers downed as many or perhaps more German planes than in the Battle of Britain. show less

This account of the early days of WW2 written by officers of the British Expeditionary Force shortly after the end of the war is a lesson for all. It's not just about the evacuation of Dunkirk by everyday citizens, but a clear perspective on the inadequacies of peacetime military forces and populations blindsided by overt aggression despite clear warning signs. At the beginning of the war, British planes were mostly obsolete, there were communication problems with the rest of Europe, and the show more Americans still had their heads in the sand thinking it was going to be a lark. I am an American. The writing is not the polished professional offering of a thesis or novel, but a stiff upper lip account well worth reading.
Thanks to Sapere Books for granting my request to read and review. I am very impressed with this and glad that it has been reprinted. show less

I bought this book to get a background on the history of Scandinavia before an upcoming trip. It was pretty short and I think the author's brevity hurt my comprehension of the subject matter. It was such a brief summary that I didn't really get a good sense of the history- just that there were a lot of wars and a lot of monarchs. He didn't do very much to describe the culture of the place or it's artists, authors or other cultural icons.

A very briskly informative review of approximately the last 4,000 years of development of the northern European region known as Scandinavia: examining the evolution of human settlement in lands that have at least one border-shoreline on the Baltic Sea. In the last 2,000 years these lands gradually became identified geographically & historically as Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
There is not much analysis of key events or key people and minus an Index the book lacks the details that go show more to make the more substantial 'History' the scope of the topic requires. show less