Mike Brown, an authority on the British Home Front of the Second World War, charts the nation's progressive change of heart from defeatism to growing confidence of certain victory. He looks at the immediate post-VE-Day period and the celebration of victory over Japan in August 1945. What should have been a story with a happy ending concludes with the harsh realisation of post-war austerity and the increasing disillusionment that led many Britons to conclude that they had won the war but lost the peace.
MIKE BROWN and Carol Harris are experts on the Second World War Home Front and co-authors of The Wartime House.