This is a book you won't want to put down. Korda is a graceful and personable writer, well-informed, perceptive, always to the point. Step by step, he traces the long chain of blunders, misunderstandings, and entrenched prejudices that led to defeat on the battlefield ... Alone is the compelling story, told in illuminating detail and without the Imax din, of how they got there, and how they got away.
...Dunkirk has a particular distinction, one that Michael Korda captures in the subtitle to his fascinating and occasionally exasperating book Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory ... With riveting detail and often pitch-perfect pacing of the dramatic tension of this early part of the war, Korda interweaves history, politics, geopolitical intrigue, backroom bargaining, generals, admirals, prime ministers and a führer, military strategy, and autobiography to tell the story surrounding those nine days ...are times when Korda’s re-creation is superb and panoramic... What is less satisfying is the parallel story of his family, whose occasionally unexpected appearances have the quality of a Dickensian non sequitur ...he may not be writing only about how Dunkirk embodied and foretold Britain’s solitary status in the world, but also how alone one 6-year-old boy felt when the world was at war.
In Alone,’ Michael Korda revisits this perilous moment. But he has not written a book purely about the retreat. Korda, a former editor turned prolific historian and biographer, also looks at the larger strategic picture as Europe erupted into war in 1939. He chronicles the downfall of Nazi appeaser Neville Chamberlain and the accession of the more aggressive Winston Churchill ... With all this in play, it’s some time before the action really picks up. When it does, Korda tells an exciting story laced with eyewitness detail and a fine sense of drama ... To his credit, Korda dials down the romance of Dunkirk. It was bloody slog from start to finish ... Though Dunkirk has been rendered as largely an all-British affair, Korda gives neglected France its due.
In a way, Alone comes to readers as a kind of Oscar project in its own right. It's blurbed by Larry McMurtry, David McCullough, and Henry Kissinger; it's lavishly illustrated; and Korda grounds its familiar story with his childhood memories of wartime tensions and radio broadcasts. This memoir framing-device gives Korda a measure of dramatic license, and he uses it to good effect. Alone is relentlessly involving reading, full of masterfully-drawn set pieces ... It's a neatly-trimmed story, a proud island holding on against a rising tide of darkness, fighting alone until either defeat or longed-for help arrives. Korda, the prolific biographer and author of an account of the Battle of Britain, knows perfectly well this is at best very partial history; but Korda, the son and nephew of movie-makers, likewise knows it's very good theater.
...in this fine book that combines memoir and history, Korda describes the coming of the war, the fall of France and the 'miracle' at Dunkirk in the measured tones of a true historian ... In his analysis of Dunkirk, Korda, like most everyone else, is baffled by Hitler’s decision to halt the advance of the German troops on British and French forces stranded on the beach, which essentially allowed the famous 'Little Ships' to rescue countless men, even though a tremendous loss of life preceded the arrival of the boats. It may not have been a victory in the traditional sense of the word, but it was a triumph, nevertheless. Alone is a masterful account of war, resiliency and England’s brave and defiant stand in a time of utter crisis.
In Alone, he combines military history and memoir in a compelling account of the beginning of World War II, the fall of France and the 'miracle' of Dunkirk ...narrative of Alone is, by turns, charming, powerful and poignant ...provides an unforgettable story of a tragedy within the larger tragedy being unleashed on Europe ... More often, however, Korda celebrates heroes. None of them is French ...Korda celebrates the 'mustn’t grumble' English, whose soldiers fought their way back to Dunkirk and whose civilians put themselves and their vessels in harm’s way to bring those soldiers back.
A swiftly paced, illuminating account of events at the opening of World War II in Europe ... To craft this narrative, full of set pieces both political and military, Korda has scoured the archives, citing, for instance, the journals of 'that rarest of observers, a well-educated public school Oxonian serving in the ranks' and looking deeply into all kinds of records. The author has a fine eye for the telling detail, too, such as the fact that British trucks captured at Dunkirk turned up among the German military train during the invasion of Russia in the following months. An excellent revisitation of a critically important set of battles that, once a byword for courage, have faded in memory.
