AUTHOR

Alan Allport

History

Alan Allport was born in Whiston, near Liverpool, in 1970, and is currently an Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University, NY. He specializes in the history of Britain in the period of the two world wars. His latest book, Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War 1938-1941, the first of a two-volume history of the entire conflict, was published by Knopf in 2020. He is the author of two previous books. Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 was published by Yale University Press in 2015. Sir Max Hastings has called it "a memorable word-portrait" of Churchill's Army, and goes on: "[The author] has distilled a mass of wisdom and gathered all manner of truths under one roof, with skill and judgment". Andrew Roberts has described Browned Off as "deeply researched, well-written, and perceptive ... Second World War history written at its best." Professor Allport's first book was Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War, also published by Yale, which won the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award and was described by the Sunday Times (London) as "a wonderfully insightful study ... remarkably moving".