Mark J. Crowley & Sandra Trudgen Dawson 
Home Fronts – Britain and the Empire at War, 1939-45 

Examines the ‘home front’ war effort from an overall imperial perspective, assessing the contribution of individual imperial territories.


There is increasing interest in the ‘home front’ during the Second World War, including issues such as how people coped with rationing, how women worked to contribute to the war effort, and how civilian morale fluctuated over time. Most studies on this subject are confined to Britain, or to a single other colonial territory, neglecting the fact that Britain controlled a large Empire and that there were numerous ‘home fronts’, each of which contributed greatly to the war effort but each in slightly different ways. This book considers ‘home fronts’ from an overall imperial perspective and in a broad array of territories – Australia, India, South Africa, Ceylon, Palestine and Kenya aswell as Britain. It examines many aspects of wartime life – food, communications, bombing, volunteering, internment and more, and discusses important themes including identity, gender, inequality, and the relationship between civilians and the state. Besides case studies outlining the detail of the situation in different territories and in different areas of life, the book assesses ‘home fronts’ across the Empire in a comprehensive way, setting the case studies in their wider context, and placing the subject in, and advancing, the historiography.


MARK J. CROWLEY is Associate Professor of History at Wuhan University, China.


SANDRA TRUDGEN DAWSON is an Instructor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland.


Contributors: NUPUR CHAUDHURI, MARK J. CROWLEY, SANDRA TRUDGEN DAWSON, NADJA DURBACH, ASHLEY JACKSON, RITIKA PRASAD, LINSEY ROBB, SHERENE SEIKALY, JEAN SMITH, ANDREW STEWART, PETER THORSHEIM, CHRISTINE WINTER

Tabela de Conteúdo

Introduction: Home Fronts and the Empire at War – and

British Restaurants and the Gender Politics of the Wartime Midday Meal – Nadja Durbach

A Nutritional Economy: The Calorie, Development, and War in Mandate Palestine – Sherene Seikaly

Rubber Shortages on Britain’s Home Front –

Nation-Building and Nationalism in Bengali Children’s Literature during the 1940s and 1950s – Nupur Chaudhuri

‘Young blood’ and ‘the blackout’: Love, Sex and Marriage on the South African Home Front – Jean Smith

Ceylon’s Home Front during the Second World War – Ashley Jackson

Nyanza at War: Kenya and the Mobilisation of Britain’s Colonial Empire – Andrew Stewart

‘Fighting In Their Ways’? The Civilian Man in British Culture, 1939-1945 – Linsey Robb

‘The Royal Mail will always get through’ – Maintaining Communications on the Home and Military Front during the Second World War –

‘National Necessity’ and ‘Patriotic Duty’: Railway Publicity in World War II India – Ritika Prasad

Removing Danger from the Home Front in Australia – Christine Winter

Bombs and Recycling Drives: The Double Threat to Books and Documents in Wartime Britain – Peter Thorsheim

Select Bibliography

Sobre o autor

Sandra Trudgen Dawson is the Executive Administrator of the Berkshire Conference of Women’s History.