"STRANGER IN THE HOUSE: Women's Stories of Men Returning from the Second World War" is made up of multi-layered stories spanning generations of the adjustments women in Britain had to make upon the return of their husbands or sweethearts from war.   Many of these men had served in the military in places as diverse as France, Italy, India, Singapore, and Java during various stages of the war.   Indeed, a large majority of these men ended up as POWs of the Germans (most of them ended up in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and Poland for almost 5 years) or the Japanese.   The ones who were prisoners of the Japanese suffered the worst in terms of physical and psychological abuse.

Many of these stories I found deeply moving.   Julie Summers is to be commended for her research into an aspect of the war and its impact on families that has been little explored by historians.     It is my hope that a similar book will be written, detailing the impact of the Second World War on returning American veterans and their families.

This book is both a tribute and a homage by the author to her mother, Dorothy Brown (1915-1965), a Jamaican who had come to the U.S on scholarship (to study medicine) in 1944, married, had 2 children, divorced, and was placed under psychiatric counselling and treatment (on the recommendation of the ex-husband, who was a rather vindictive and controlling man) at 'Pilgrim State' in Brentwood, NY --- so named because in its time, the center was the largest hospital in the world. Dorothy was released from Pilgrim State, lived for a time in New York, where she met the man who became the author's father. But her stay in the U.S. was not to be permanent. Despite Dorothy's efforts to make a better life for herself and her 3 children, she was judged by the U.S. as "not of sound character" and deported to Jamaica with 2 of her children (the oldest was placed in the custody of the ex-husband) in 1956.

The author writes lovingly of a mother of wide-ranging ambitions, a fierce intelligence, and boundless love and devotion for her children. Despite all the challenges and obstacles placed before her, Dorothy travelled to Canada to work and save money for a year and a half so that she and her children could emigrate to Britain, which they did in 1959.

Here is a richly inspirational story that will touch the heart of any reader who believes in the power of love.

For Americans, the name "Benedict Arnold" is synonymous with traitor. (Arnold was an officer in the Continental Army with a distinguished combat record during the American War of Independence who later changed sides and fought with the British.) Taken in the larger context of the Cold War, the same can be said for Harold Adrian Russell Philby - aka Kim Philby.

Philby was one of those men of Britain's interwar generation hailing from a privileged class who, upon graduating from Oxford or Cambridge, were expected to make their mark upon the world and lead it. In Philby's case, as the son of a distinguished, eccentric and distant father, he learned early how to ingratiate and endear himself with people. In his early 20s while a student at Cambridge, Philby became a convert to Soviet Communism and devoted his life in service to the Soviet Union. What is remarkable in Philby's case is how he was able for close to 30 years to live, in effect, two lives. The one of an urbane, witty, charming, and suave Englishman (who rose to the highest ranks of Britain's MI6, which is analogous to the CIA) --- coupled with that of a Soviet spy --- a mole --- who faithfully served Moscow Centre by compromising a whole host of Allied/Western espionage operations dating from the Second World War to the early 1960s (when he defected to Moscow).

In reading this book, I was amazed at how the British "old boy network" operated in terms of both promoting and protecting its own in its intelligence services (MI5 and MI6). The following observations made by the author I found both interesting and startling ---

"... Philby's life developed a pattern of duality, in which he consistently undermined his own work, but never aroused suspicion. He made elaborate plans to combat Soviet intelligence, and then immediately betrayed them to Soviet intelligence; he urged ever greater efforts to combat the communist threat, and personified that threat; his own section worked smoothly, yet nothing quite succeeded."

"During the war, the Bletchley Park decoders had enabled Britain to discover what German intelligence was doing. Philby's espionage went one better: he could tell his Soviet handlers what Britain's spymasters were intending to do, before they did it; he could tell Moscow what London was thinking."


This is a book that provides the reader with "a chilling examination of how far anyone can ever really know another human being."

"CHALLENGE OF BATTLE" is, perhaps, the finest book yet written on what was the British Army of 1914. Of all the major European powers, Britain possessed the smallest peacetime army. Yet, despite its size, it was a force that had been seasoned over the past century in various colonial wars fought in Africa and Asia.

The common impression formed of the British Army upon taking the field in France in August 1914 and marching north into Belgium (where it first clashed with the German Army at Mons), was that despite its small numbers, it managed, owing to superior firepower and riflemanship, to always stay one step ahead of the Germans, helping their French allies to buy time, and thus keep Paris free and France afloat, at the First Battle of the Marne. Gilbert sets out to show the reader that the British Army was not without its faults, both in terms of tactics and its leadership. Indeed, "[t]he overall performance of the BEF [British Expeditionary Force] during the 1914 campaign was uneven. The peacetime failings in command and control had been ruthlessly exposed on many occasions, and the vital necessity for the separate arms to work closely together was a lesson that was painfully and sometimes inadequately learned. The morale of the other ranks had proved too dependent on the inspirational qualities of their officers; when officers became casualties, or otherwise failed as leaders, the men fell back from exposed front-line positions with alarming frequency. Good leadership at all levels was a precursor to battlefield success."

The story of the British Army's actions at Mons, Le Cateau, along the Aisne River, and in Flanders during October and November 1914 is well-detailed and a fascinating one. It is a story in which Gilbert shows to fine effect his extensive knowledge of the subject. Plus, this is a book that even the layperson can easily digest without getting lost (or hopelessly bogged down) in the minutiae of military jargon and tactics that often clouds books on military history.  I'm so glad I read this one.