The Wall Street Journal Reviews Allport’s ‘Advance Britannia’

March 27, 2026

The Wall Street Journal

Alan Allport

History Department

Center for European Studies

Conflict

Europe

The Wall Street Journal

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Alan Allport

Professor of History Alan Allport's book, Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945 (Penguin Random House, 2026), was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal.

“Mr. Allport’s command of his sources is remarkable, and the bibliography is vast. At the same time, the author’s easy way with an anecdote makes reading Advance Britannia effortlessly pleasant. It is very easy to put this book down for a night, and to pick it up the next day,” writes reviewer Paul Kennedy, Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University.

“The book is a story about what happened to the common citizen, and the common soldier. It is a splendid example of how to do a fully rounded work on a people at total war, of how to use a vast mix of sources, and to keep the story going,” he says.

Read the full review here.