An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War - Hardcover

Thomas, Donald

3.66

41 ratings by Goodreads

9780719557323: An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719557321 ISBN 13: 9780719557323

Publisher: John Murray, 2003

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The activities of the underworld, extending into a civilian black market and the armed forces, are one of the great untold stories of the Second World War. The profits of civilian racketeering dwarfed the rewards of smash-and-grab or safebreaking, though these continued apace. Professional gangs raided government offices for ration books and underground presses counterfeited petrol and clothing coupons in tens of thousands. The scale of theft in the army was also colossal, with whole consignments of cigarettes, razor-blades and NAAFI stores disappearing.

Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to tell the extraordinary tale of these less-heroic Britons. The facts he uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable.

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Review:

Well researched catalogue of infamy (The Times)

Fascinating book ... a richly readable and absorbing account (Times Higher Education Supplement)

This is a wonderful book, the best I have read for ages. It is beautifully written, utterly compelling: almost without fault in every respect. Thomas, who was a boy during the war, understands his m�tier intimately (Simon Heffer, Literary Review)

In this astonishing book Donald Thomas shows, in utterly absorbing detail, just how common ... criminal behaviour was in Britain during the Second World War (Sunday Times)

Thomas has excelled himself. His book is mesmerising and is an unputdownable and brilliantly researched page-turner. An important and riveting study in social history, it also has a very pertinent relevance in the overtaxed, overruled and crime-riddled society that is Britain today. (Sunday Times)

Having read this magnificent book, one understands that such humour is so powerful because it is rooted in the shared experience of a country at war (Simon Heffer, Literary Review)

Donald Thomas's fascinating book ... is full of wonderful examples of dishonesty, from the most mundane ... to the shocking (Daily Telegraph)

Wartime Britain was full of people who resisted the call to altruism ... Thomas's account, filled with anecdotes and eye-opening detail, brings them back to life (Sunday Times)

If you thought the home front in WWII was about good citizens being decent and upstanding, think again: it was a racketeer's paradise (Time Out)

Book Description:

The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heros, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled.

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