A Cliché to Be Avoided Like the Plague: The ‘People’s War’ in the History and Historiography of the British Second World War

Abstract

The forum shows that I correctly diagnosed the place that ‘people’s war’ has in the historiography of the Second World War; that, if anything, I underestimated the grip that the connected series of beliefs about ‘people’s war’ have come to have over some historians of the British Second World War; and how difficult it is to start a conversation about framing assumptions and the nature of the historiography of the war. In this response I aim to get above the din of detail and try to understand the underlying positions being taken by the respondents. I will try to tease out their rather hidden assumptions, in order to clarify better what is at issue and at stake, thereby making a fresh attempt to take this discussion forward. I will also extend the discussion by considering works that have already rejected the conceptualisation of ‘people’s war’ defended in this forum. I hope that my original paper and the forum itself will together make the case that we need fresh ways of thinking about the British Second World War, as well as suggest that new ways are already in being and that the concept of ‘people’s war’ as currently used by many historians needs to be abandoned.