Troublesome Young Men; The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power, and Helped Save England

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. Claudio Vazquez (author photograph). [12], 436 pages. Notes, Bibliography, Acknowledgments, and Index. Signed copy sticker on front of the DJ. Signed by the author on the title page. Minor tear and crease at bottom of page 435/6. DJ has some wear and soiling. Includes Introduction and chapters entitled: 'We May Be Going to Die'; Playing the Game; "Troublesome Young Men''; "Dictators Are Very Popular These Days"; "I Lack the "Spunk"; "Quite Simply, He Told Lies''; "Our Own Soul Is at Stake"; "Terrible, Unmitigated, Unparalleled Dishonor"'; Retribution; "Waiting for a Stirring Lead"; "Here Is the Testing"; "Speak for England"; Playing at War; "The Misery of Doing Nothing"; "He Is Absolutely Loyal"; "Gambling with the Life of the Nation";" In the Name of God, Go!'' ; "Victory at all Costs"; A Question of Loyalty; A Son's Betrayal; Aftermath. Lynne Olson (born August 19, 1949) is an American author, historian and journalist. In 1969 she graduated from University of Arizona. Before becoming a writer she worked for the Associated Press and the Baltimore Sun. She has written several books on the history of the World War II era, which have received positive critical reviews. This is an impressive, often overlooked story of true political courage and genuine political leadership in a time of war. On May 7, 1940, the House of Commons began perhaps the most crucial debate in British parliamentary history. On its outcome hung the future of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government and also of Britain—indeed, perhaps, the world. Troublesome Young Men is Lynne Olson's fascinating account of how a small group of rebellious Tory MPs defied the Chamberlain government's defeatist policies that aimed to appease Europe's tyrants and eventually forced the prime minister's resignation. Some historians dismiss the "phony war" that preceded this turning point—from September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill became prime minister—as a time of waiting and inaction, but Olson makes no such mistake, and describes in dramatic detail the public unrest that spread through Britain then, as people realized how poorly prepared the nation was to confront Hitler, how their basic civil liberties were being jeopardized, and also that there were intrepid politicians willing to risk political suicide to spearhead the opposition to Chamberlain—Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland, and Lord Robert Cranborne among them. The political and personal dramas that played out in Parliament and in the nation as Britain faced the threat of fascism virtually on its own are extraordinary—and, in Olson's hands, downright inspiring.