Contesting Home Defense: Men, Women, and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Cultural History of Modern War) / Penny Summerfield, Corinna Peniston-Bird

Contesting Home Defence is a new history of the Home Guard, a novel national defence force of the Second World War composed of civilians who served as part-time soldiers: it questions accounts of the force and the war, which have seen them as symbols of national unity. The book makes a significant and original contribution to debates concerning the British home front and introduces fresh ways of understanding the Second World War.