Reviews
How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War by Norman Longmate
cherylo's review against another edition
4.0
This is an incredibly comprehensive book of everyday life in Britain during World War II. Although I was born and raised in Britain, before I read this book, I knew little about this subject beyond the bare facts of air raids, blackouts, and rationing.
40 chapters are devoted to topics as diverse as the impact of the war on: women in the workplace, reading, university life, music, cinema, and sports. The book was very interesting and easy to read but, as other reviewers have noted, Longmate included too many (fairly similar) anecdotes about each topic. It was as if, having gathered together as much material as possible on his subject, he could not bear to leave anything out.
40 chapters are devoted to topics as diverse as the impact of the war on: women in the workplace, reading, university life, music, cinema, and sports. The book was very interesting and easy to read but, as other reviewers have noted, Longmate included too many (fairly similar) anecdotes about each topic. It was as if, having gathered together as much material as possible on his subject, he could not bear to leave anything out.
enolas's review against another edition
5.0
Fascinating first-person accounts on the social history of World War Two, I'll be coming back to this one once the boys cycle round to this period in history. Evocative and moving.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
4.0
A history of World War II in which Churchill, Hitler, Eisenhower, Roosevelt and others scarcely get a look in is always worth a read! So often histories of the war either take an overview approach, or a specifically military approach, or they focus on a specific group, a specific battle or theatre of war. But this book is very much about the ordinary man (and woman) in the street and their wartime experiences, rather than high-level politics and military manoeuvres. Even the Blitz as an extraordinary event gets very little time; it is very much about the day-to-day experiences of wartime, the minor and the mundane.
Longmate, who himself lived through the war as a teenager, takes a thematic rather than chronological approach, each chapter focusing on a different aspect of life on the home front: rationing, the black-out, wartime weddings, evacuation, schools, garden air-raid shelters, pets, holidays, travel, sports and entertainment, even personal hygiene! It really brings home just how total a war it really was; there was almost no element of life that continued unchanged and undisturbed.
Longmate collected a huge quantity of personal reminiscences for this book, and every chapter, every page is full of memories and anecdotes from his contributors. These personal accounts really give life and immediacy to the narrative, and very often the banal quality of them makes it even more poignant. For most people didn't, couldn't see the bigger picture, and the day-to-day petty inconveniences and deprivations were their most salient memories of the war. And yet in many ways these are the most interesting elements of the wartime story because they are most representative of real life and real people.
Longmate, who himself lived through the war as a teenager, takes a thematic rather than chronological approach, each chapter focusing on a different aspect of life on the home front: rationing, the black-out, wartime weddings, evacuation, schools, garden air-raid shelters, pets, holidays, travel, sports and entertainment, even personal hygiene! It really brings home just how total a war it really was; there was almost no element of life that continued unchanged and undisturbed.
Longmate collected a huge quantity of personal reminiscences for this book, and every chapter, every page is full of memories and anecdotes from his contributors. These personal accounts really give life and immediacy to the narrative, and very often the banal quality of them makes it even more poignant. For most people didn't, couldn't see the bigger picture, and the day-to-day petty inconveniences and deprivations were their most salient memories of the war. And yet in many ways these are the most interesting elements of the wartime story because they are most representative of real life and real people.
annecm's review against another edition
4.0
A bit patchy because so many sources were used, but an eclectically fascinating read.
librarianonparade's review
4.0
A history of World War II in which Churchill, Hitler, Eisenhower, Roosevelt and others scarcely get a look in is always worth a read! So often histories of the war either take an overview approach, or a specifically military approach, or they focus on a specific group, a specific battle or theatre of war. But this book is very much about the ordinary man (and woman) in the street and their wartime experiences, rather than high-level politics and military manoeuvres. Even the Blitz as an extraordinary event gets very little time; it is very much about the day-to-day experiences of wartime, the minor and the mundane.
Longmate, who himself lived through the war as a teenager, takes a thematic rather than chronological approach, each chapter focusing on a different aspect of life on the home front: rationing, the black-out, wartime weddings, evacuation, schools, garden air-raid shelters, pets, holidays, travel, sports and entertainment, even personal hygiene! It really brings home just how total a war it really was; there was almost no element of life that continued unchanged and undisturbed.
Longmate collected a huge quantity of personal reminiscences for this book, and every chapter, every page is full of memories and anecdotes from his contributors. These personal accounts really give life and immediacy to the narrative, and very often the banal quality of them makes it even more poignant. For most people didn't, couldn't see the bigger picture, and the day-to-day petty inconveniences and deprivations were their most salient memories of the war. And yet in many ways these are the most interesting elements of the wartime story because they are most representative of real life and real people.
Longmate, who himself lived through the war as a teenager, takes a thematic rather than chronological approach, each chapter focusing on a different aspect of life on the home front: rationing, the black-out, wartime weddings, evacuation, schools, garden air-raid shelters, pets, holidays, travel, sports and entertainment, even personal hygiene! It really brings home just how total a war it really was; there was almost no element of life that continued unchanged and undisturbed.
Longmate collected a huge quantity of personal reminiscences for this book, and every chapter, every page is full of memories and anecdotes from his contributors. These personal accounts really give life and immediacy to the narrative, and very often the banal quality of them makes it even more poignant. For most people didn't, couldn't see the bigger picture, and the day-to-day petty inconveniences and deprivations were their most salient memories of the war. And yet in many ways these are the most interesting elements of the wartime story because they are most representative of real life and real people.
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