Why the Second World War Still Matters

We still live in the shadow of the Second World War. In the peace that followed, our rubbled cities and societies were invigorated by bold new ideas. Colonialism gave way to the Cold War. New technologies extended lives even as they threatened to end life on Earth. Wonder walked hand-in-hand with terror.

In The Fear and the Freedom, Keith Lowe shows how the war left the modern world in thrall to a series of developments and myths that transformed what happened, what came after and who we are now.

‘A masterpiece’ – Saul David, Daily Telegraph

‘Highly readable and startling. Remarkable.’ – David Olusoga, Guardian

‘One of the best, most useful books on World War II to have emerged in the last decade’, Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal