Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That… (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2016; vuoden 2017 painos)

Found this very interesting, having just read a book on SOE. Particularly interested in Shan Hackett's account of being given safety by the brave de Nooij sisters.
A helpful overview. ( )

A must read. The author does not like Britain too much. She allows for France to do quite well as an army, implying that the uk screwed her.
She does her work well, showing how 20 % of the RAF was Czech and Polish and how the Poles got an enigma machine. ( )

LAST HOPE ISLAND, the seventh and latest book by award-winning journalist-turned-historian Lynne Olson, delves into hidden corners of WWII history. Each of the twenty-nine chapters is a stand-alone snippet focusing on one of the war's individual personalities, groups, or detailed topics of Great Britain and/or one of the occupied countries of Europe, my top three being:
Chapter 5: "Something Called Heavy Water"
Chapter 12: "Factions, Feuds, and Infighting"
Chapter 27: "A Collective Fault"
While the detached nature of each chapter allows for reading in convenient time blocks, it precludes the ability to see how each snippet fits into the overall history of the war, unless the reader is knowledgeable of WWII from other sources. Perhaps this is inevitable, or perhaps a result of the start-and-stop writing of the project over more than ten years, as mentioned in the author's note near the end of the book.
I'd recommend LAST HOPE ISLAND to readers who have previous knowledge of WWII and are looking for hidden details that are not in the books covering the war's "big picture." ( )

A fantastically written history of WWII that focuses on six European nations whose governments were forced into exile in Britain. Olson makes a chunky and complex history compulsively readable and highlights figures both well-known and less so and makes them fascinating. While I have a good general handle on the broad strokes of WWII, this highlighted groups like the Polish 303 squadron who were some of the most successful fighters in the Battle of Britain and highlighted just how brutal the repercussions were for the people of the Netherlands after the Battle of Arnhem. Highly recommended. ( )

A poor, shallow history of how during World War II governments and fighters from conquered European countries fled to Britain and fought from there against Germany. I don't know why I finished it, it is the worst history I have read in a long time.

Olson has a strong agenda of playing up the importance of this resistance. This agenda is so transparent that it makes it hard to believe much of what she says. She frequently quotes as evidence completely non-credible or even obviously false statements, because they play into her agenda. Who knows what she doesn't quote, because she makes no pretense of putting her claims in context.

Beyond this, the focus and pacing is frequently bizarre, jumping between a 10,000-foot overview narrative and detailed descriptions of the flowers in someone's garden. This is a pretty good sign of a history book written by throwing together index card notes, rather than a carefully considered (and hopefully edited) work. ( )