Summary
Combining epic history with rich family stories, Michael Korda chronicles the outbreak of World War II and the great events that led to Dunkirk.
In an absorbing work peopled with world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both sides of World War II, Alone brings to resounding life perhaps the most critical year of twentieth-century history. For, indeed, May 1940 was a month like no other, as the German war machine blazed into France while the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line crumbled, and Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister in an astonishing political drama as Britain, isolated and alone, faced a triumphant Nazi Germany. Against this vast historical canvas, Michael Korda relates what happened and why, and also tells his own story, that of a six-year-old boy in a glamorous movie family who would himself be evacuated. Alone is a work that seamlessly weaves a family memoir into an unforgettable account of a political and military disaster redeemed by the evacuation of more than 300,000 men in four days--surely one of the most heroic episodes of the war.
12 maps; 68 illustrations
Publisher's Weekly Review
English-born writer and novelist Korda (Clouds of Glory) attends to the British experience during the desperate months from the beginning of WWII to the retreat from Dunkirk and the very real prospects of a German invasion. Building around his own fragmented childhood memories, Korda eloquently depicts the reluctance with which Britain went to war. The atmosphere during inactive winter of 1939-1940, commonly called the Phoney War, seemed "very much as it had been in 1914-1918, but on a smaller scale," Korda writes, and was accompanied by wishful thinking that Hitler had missed his opportunity to strike. The German invasion and overrunning of Norway in April generated apprehension that brought Winston Churchill to power-just as the whirlwind attack on France and the Low Countries demonstrated clearly that it was the Allies who had missed their chance. Synergistic catastrophe, well narrated by Korda, culminated at Dunkirk; the evacuation was a tactical tour de force, but also a reminder that, in Churchill's famous words, "wars are not won by evacuations." At any rate, Korda's Hungarian-born father organized the family's own timely evacuation from Britain to Hollywood. But his English mother unreflectively believed "everything would work out well in the end." The successful Dunkirk evacuation "would sustain the people through the next four years," Korda writes, with his mother's optimism eventually affirmed. Maps & illus. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A swiftly paced, illuminating account of events at the opening of World War II in Europe, recounting "a military defeat with a happy ending."Revived in part thanks to Christopher Nolan's 2017 film Dunkirk, the history of the British Expeditionary Force is compelling even in its barest bones. Korda (Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee, 2014, etc.), noted as both a historian and publisher, brings a personal touch to the story with that of his own family's flight from Europe a step or two ahead of the advancing Nazis. So it was with the BEF, caught in France at the beginning of the German blitzkrieg. They fought valiantly as they retreated toward the coast, then were evacuated, famously, by a flotilla of both military and civilian boats that crossed the Channel under extreme danger, attacked by Stuka bombers and heavy artillery all the while. As the author observes, these unfolding events occasioned the first sustained contact between the French and British commands, to uneasy results. Some of the French commanders were highly effective, others not, while of the ordinary French troops, as one British veteran recounted, "their zest and delight in shooting Germans was most entertaining." Even so, Winston Churchill found it necessary to deny the French access to the Royal Air Force, since, the British leader reasoned, the French army might well fold, as it did, and leave the British to fight the war alone. To craft this narrative, full of set pieces both political and military, Korda has scoured the archives, citing, for instance, the journals of "that rarest of observers, a well-educated public school Oxonian serving in the ranks" and looking deeply into all kinds of records. The author has a fine eye for the telling detail, too, such as the fact that British trucks captured at Dunkirk turned up among the German military train during the invasion of Russia in the following months. An excellent revisitation of a critically important set of battles that, once a byword for courage, have faded in memory. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* There is already a sagging shelf of weighty tomes on the British Expeditionary Force's evacuation from Dunkirk in May 1940 as well as a new movie on the topic but room must be made for Korda's fine combination of gripping history and fascinating memoir. Korda wrote about his famous family (his father was a film editor; his uncle, a film director; and his aunt, the actress Merle Oberon) in the best-selling Charmed Lives (1979), and he revisits them here but in a very different context, contrasting their experiences during the early days of the war with those of less fortunate British citizens. This personal history makes for a striking backdrop to the account of, first, the run-up to war; then the German blitzkrieg into France; finally, the evacuation of 300,000 mainly British troops from the beach at Dunkirk, aided by the now-legendary little boats, pleasure craft piloted by British citizens. Korda brings a smooth, flowing style to the familiar story but also shifts at least some of the typical emphasis, noting that celebration of the evacuation and immortalization of the little boats' has tended to draw attention away from the savage fighting that preceded it. Equally fascinating is his analysis of how Hitler's decision to divert his tanks from Dunkirk allowed the British to turn defeat into a strange kind of victory. In all, Korda succeeds in infusing straight history with the accessible tone of narrative nonfiction.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE DAWN WATCH: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, by Maya Jasanoff. (Penguin, $18.) Jasanoff, a Harvard professor, explores how Conrad's novels grappled with Western imperialism and sought to expose its many hypocrisies. "Jasanoff does not forgive Conrad his blindness," our reviewer, Ngugi wa Thiong'O, wrote, but she offers context to his perspective, "one that still has strong resonance today" THE COMPLETE STORIES, by Clarice Lispector. Translated by Katrina Dodson. Edited by Benjamin Moser. (New Directions, $21.95.) In the strange stories across this collection, Lispector establishes herself as a truly original Latin American writer. Our reviewer, Terrence Rafferty, praised the collection, warning that it "is a dangerous book to read quickly or casually because it's so consistently delirious." THE SHADOW IN THE GARDEN: A Biographer's Tale, by James Atlas. (Vintage, $19.) Atlas has written acclaimed biographies of the writers Saul Bellow and Delmore Schwartz, and discusses the process by which artists' life stories get told. Along the way, Atlas revisits his childhood in Chicago, his formative time at Oxford (where he studied with the noted Joyce scholar Richard Ellmann) and the works of classic biographers. THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES, by Joseph Cassara. (Ecco, $16.99.) A debut novel follows the gay ballroom subculture of 1980s New York, including the imagined lives of figures from the documentary "Paris Is Burning." The story centers on the House of Xtravaganza, an all-Latino ballroom in the Harlem circuit. Angel founded the house with her partner, but when the partner dies of AIDS-related complications, it falls to her to shelter the house's members from rejection and abuse, and foster a community. ALONE: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory, by Michael Korda. (Liveright, $18.95.) Korda was a child during the war, and his memories of the 1940 defeat offer a satisfying complement to the historical account. Other books may provide more robust discussions of the Dunkirk evacuation's military dimension, but Korda highlights the Royal Navy's essential, if often overlooked, role in the operation. FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD, by Louise Erdrich. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) Evolution runs backward in Erdrich's futuristic novel; Cedar, the main character, is expecting a baby as the rights of pregnant women are under threat. The book is structured as a letter to her unborn child, chronicling the world's unraveling, with urgent climate change worries and ever-tightening martial law.
Library Journal Review
Prolific editor and author Korda (Clouds of Glory) pens a historical memoir that touches close to home, an in-depth look at his native England's pivotal escape at the Battle of Dunkirk during World War II. Korda states in his prolog that this is both a personal story and an intimate history of how the British Army came to the precipice of defeat. Though some intimate accounts are contributed, this book weighs heavily on the war and the political and strategic views on both the Allied and German sides. Korda returns to the decisive period of 1939-40, when Germany's aggression is felt in eastern and western Europe leading up to the decisive retreat at Dunkirk, which the author believes to have saved roughly 300,000 British soldiers to fight another day. Korda writes vividly, and World War II enthusiasts, particularly British supporters, will enjoy his retelling of England's seemingly solitary battle as the last European power willing and able to stand up to Germany. VERDICT This lengthy, at times dense, history might disappoint those interested in a more personal account, finding its home among fans of descriptive World War II military history. [See Prepub Alert, 3/13/17.]-Keith Klang, Port Washington P.L., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
