ABSTRACT
In the disastrous circumstances of June 1940 the pugnacious posture adopted by Britain’s leaders was clear enough. But what did the people feel? For reasons of nationality, religion, ideology, and perhaps other less worthy motives, a number of Britain’s inhabitants were not roused into enthusiastic support for the leadership’s unabashed defiance any more than they had welcomed the declaration of war nine months earlier. How large that number was, was unknown even to the government, and this was itself a source of anxiety: was the less than wholly-united society of the 1930s basically unchanged, or was the state of war having the predicted effect of healing divisions and drawing the nation together against the external threat?
