Alan Allport

Alan Allport was born in Whiston, near Liverpool, in 1970, and is currently a 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".