Alone

Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

By: Michael Korda

Narrated by: John Lee

Combining epic history with rich family stories, Michael Korda chronicles the outbreak of World War II and the great events that led to Dunkirk.

An epic of remarkable originality, Alone captures the heroism of World War II as movingly as any book in recent memory. Bringing to vivid life the world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both sides of the war, Michael Korda, the best-selling author of Clouds of Glory, chronicles the outbreak of hostilities, recalling as a prescient young boy the enveloping tension that defined pre-Blitz London, and then as a military historian the great events that would alter the course of the 20th century.

For indeed, May 1940 was a month like no other. The superior German war machine blazed into France, as the Maginot Line, supposedly "as firmly fixed in place as the Pyramids", crumbled in days. With the fall of Holland and Belgium, the imminent fall of Paris, the British army stranded at Dunkirk, and Neville Chamberlain's government in political freefall, Winston Churchill became prime minister on this historical nadir of May 10, 1941. Britain, diplomatically isolated, was suddenly the only nation with the courage and the resolve to defy Hitler.

Against this vast historical canvas, Korda relates what happened and why. We first meet him at the age of six, surrounded by his glamorous movie family: his stage actress mother; his elegant father, Vincent, soon to receive an Academy Award; and his devoted Nanny Low, with whom he recites his evening prayers. Even the cheery BBC bulletins that Michael listened to every night could not mask the impending catastrophe, the German invasion so certain that the young boy, carrying his passport on a string around his neck, was evacuated to Canada on an ocean liner full of children.

Such alarm was hardly exaggerated. No one, after all, could have ever imagined that the most unlikely flotilla of destroyers - Dutch barges, fishing boats, yachts, and even rowboats - would rescue over 300,000 men off the beach at Dunkirk and bring them home to England. The miraculous return of the army was greeted with a renewed call for courage, and in the months that followed, the lives of tens of millions would be inexorably transformed, often tragically so, by these epochal weeks of May 1940.

It is this pivotal turning point in world history that Korda captures with such immediacy in Alone, a work that triumphantly demonstrates that even the most calamitous defeats can become the most legendary victories.

©2017 Success Research Corporation (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Nothing Wrong Here

I didn’t find Alone to be amazing or terrible. One of those books that doesn’t stand out either way, which might be worse. Performance was good but the story I felt was lacking somehow. Perhaps I was looking for a more in depth hard history version of the months leading up to Dunkirk.

Very Telling

My parents and grand parents would not talk about the war. There were great insights that helped give a much better picture of what and why. It never fails to interest me in the egos that govern war and the mistakes that are continually made generation after generation.

Far better than the Dunkirk film

very informative run through the first parts of WWII resulting in Great Britain's isolation after the famous operation Dynamo

France's resistance to German invasion.

Most of this is familiar territory, but is an excellent counterpoint to the movie Dunkirk, which I found fatuous. Excellent, informative analysis of France's underwhelming resistance to German invasion.

WWII in Britain from the prodrome through Dunkirk.

I'm a self-admitted devotee of WWII non-fiction, and this surpassed my expectations. My favorite sub-genre is "bottom-up history" - stories of historical events see through the eyes of individuals at street level who lived through them, at least long enough to have left a diary, letter, or a memoir.

Having spent the first half of 2020 reading the three-volume mega-tome "The Last Lion", to realize Alone was another top-shelf retelling and analysis of the events leading up to Dunkirk was a bit of a disappointment, but that didn't last long!

Alone is told not only from a great deal of historical facts and research, but always framed by author Michael Korda's own memories of living through the events, told from the perspective of a six-year-old boy in the home of highly placed parents who, as famous people in show business, hobnobbed with the high and mighty in Britain's political arena.

In America, our historical knowledge and focus is mostly told from the bombing of Pearl Harbor forward, to the end of the war, with a brief but romanticized retelling of the incredible rescue of over 300,000 British and French fighters cornered and stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. As we currently remember and honor those world-changing historical events at 75th-anniversary commemorations, if you only want to read one engaging but over-arching book for this period, choosing this one would be a terrific choice. Who knows but that it might whet your appetite for more - both top-down and bottom-up views!

I chose to listen to this book read to me on Audible, and the narrator, John Lee, was articulate, his voice easy on the ear, perfectly paced, and the sound engineering criticism-proof.

Great listen

Incredibly good listen. Great story combined with good performance. This book made history come alive.

Great and unexpected

I thought this book would be a history about the time between the surrender of France and the invasion of the USSR. I was pleasantly surprised to find it covered the time leading up to the war and the Battle of France in great detail. the author's anecdotes regarding his own life as a child at the time provide a welcome humanizing element to a thoroughly engaging book.

Great listen for a history novice

I have a hard time retaining history that I learn. Alone did a good job of helping me to understand WW1 from the British standpoint (I'm American). I read this after watching the Darkest Hour and Dunkirk. I appreciated this book correcting the errors or Hollywood.

The narrator was engaging, I mostly listened on 1.25-1.5 speed.

very educational

good narrator, I learned a lot about what lead up to world War 2 and perspective.

Great Listen!

Very well written and interesting accounting of Britain's view of WW II and Dunkirk. Excellent narration! I really enjoyed this book, and I didn't expect to find it interesting.