London at the outset of war in 1939 was the greatest city in the world, the heart of the British Empire. By 1945, it was a drab and exhausted city, beginning the long haul back to recovery. The defiant capital had always been Hitler's prime target. The last months of the war saw the final phase of the battle of London as the enemy unleashed its new vengeance weapons, the flying bombs and rockets. They were terrifying and brought destruction on a vast scale, but fortunately came too late to dent morale seriously. The people of London were showing the spirit, courage, and resilience that had earned them the admiration of the world during a long siege. In the harshest winter of fifty years, they were living in primitive conditions. Thousands were homeless, living in the Underground and deep shelters. Women lined up for horse meat and were lucky to obtain one egg a month. They besieged emergency coal dumps. Everyone longed for peace. The bright new world seemed elusive. As the victory celebrations passed into memory, there were severe hardships and all the problems of post-war adjustment. Women lost the independence the war had lent them, husbands and wives had to learn to live together again, and children had a lot of catching up to do. Yet London's loss has often been its opportunity. Its people had eagerly embraced plans for a modern metropolis and an end to poverty. They voted overwhelmingly for a Labour government and the new, fairer social order that was their reward for all they had endured. The year of victory, 1945, represents an important chapter in London's---and Britain's---long history. Acclaimed historian Maureen Waller draws on a rich array of primary sources, letting the people tell their own story, to re-create that moment, bringing to it the social insight at which she excels. Waller has written a compelling account of the final year of a valiant city's stand against the Fuhrer. Hitler's fury came in the form of supersonic V-2s, fiendish weapons impervious to all the defensive countermeasures England deployed. Waller memorializes the thousands who perished--while checking out a book at the library or riding a bus to work. She also chronicles the valor of the rescue crews who snatched hundreds from beneath the rubble. Beyond the constant threat from the skies, Londoners also coped with ubiquitous shortages by carefully husbanding rationed milk and coal and growing small victory gardens. Londoners even coped with periodic shortages of truth in censored and occasionally jingoistic media. Waller herself provides unvarnished veracity in recounting wartime prostitution in Hyde Park, London's black market, and the looting of bombing victims' goods. Even in the joy of victory, Waller discerns a dark undercurrent, as the iconic Churchill faces restive voters. Despite the postwar disillusionment, Waller marvels at how the city astride the Thames set about replacing blackened ruins with thriving new enterprises. History alive with real human faces. Bryce Christensen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Imbues the era with a sense of immediacy few other histories of the subject can match." - The Sunday Times (UK) "Thoroughly engrossing... Mingling statistical data with eyewitness accounts, [Waller] builds up a detailed picture of daily life in London..."- The New York Times "Waller...balances an enormous amount of data with a journalistic attention to anecdote and oral history in this stunning book."- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A gracefully rendered portrait of a great city at war... Vivid and highly readable."- Kirkus "Waller's book masterfully supplements Philip Zieglers's London at War, 1939-1945 and provides the reader with a well-crafted story of war and its cruel impact on a large European city."- Library Journal "Thoroughly engrossing... Mingling statistical data with eyewitness accounts, [Waller] builds up a detailed picture of daily life in London..." -The New York Times ( New York Times ) "A gracefully rendered portrait of a great city at war... Vivid and highly readable." -Kirkus ( Kirkus ) "Waller's book masterfully supplements Philip Zieglers's London at War, 1939-1945 and provides the reader with a well-crafted story of war and its cruel impact on a large European city." -Library Journal ( Library Journal ) "Waller...balances an enormous amount of data with a journalistic attention to anecdote and oral history in this stunning book."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) ( Publishers Weekly ) Praise for Ungrateful Daughters "Maureen Waller frames an absorbing narrative of the Glorious Revolution." - The New York Times Book Review "This is a family drama reported with a keen ear for delicious, gossipy detail and a satisfying willingness to take sides." - The Washington Times "A highly readable, thoroughly researched family saga that shows vividly how the personal and the political interacted to produce one of the seminal events