Overview

The Second World War destroyed countless cities in Europe and Asia. Naples 1944 is the story of the first major European city to be liberated by the Allies. The book describes not only what happened to Naples when the scourge of war lashed down upon it, but also, crucially, what happened next. This is the first major history of wartime Naples to appear in the English language. It fills a glaring gap in the British and American historiography of the war and shares a hoard of new stories – some of them truly shocking – that have never yet been published in any language. When the Allies arrived in late 1943, Naples had already suffered a brutal German occupation and suffered reprisals from the city’s heroic resistance and uprisings. This did not save it from the merciless Allied bombing. The city was on its knees with widespread suffering and squalor. Criminal gangs prospered, as did typhus, starvation and soaring prices on the black market. Much of the female population was forced into part-time prostitution simply to obtain food. Then Vesuvius erupted. Lowe’s gripping and powerful book places Naples right at the heart of Italian history. What happened in this city was not a mere sideshow to bigger events taking place further north, it was central to the story of the country as a whole. Neapolitans resisted Fascism just as the Florentines, the Bolognese, and the Milanese did. They suffered just as northerners did, and they longed as much for constitutional rebirth. The heroism and sacrifice that took place in Naples were harbingers of what would later happen throughout Italy – as were the compromise and corruption of ideals that came after the Allies took control. Naples 1944 is original and humane history at its very best, and a book which shows that Neapolitan story is the Italian story.

Full Product Details

9780008339609

Table of Contents

Reviews

Praise for Keith Lowe ‘Grimly absorbing, conveys the pity of war and its sorry aftermath with integrity and proper sympathy’ Ian Thompson, Sunday Telegraph ‘Moving, measured and provocative’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Graphic and chilling. This excellent book paints a little-known and frightening picture of a continent in the embrace of lawlessness and chaos’ Ian Kershaw ‘A powerful and disturbing book, painstakingly researched and written with both authority and an impressive historical sweep’ James Holland ‘An excellent account…Lowe's vivid descriptions of Europeans scrambling for scraps of food, rampant theft and 'destruction of morals' are a timely reminder that a certain humility is in order when we look at less fortunate continents today’ Brendan Simms, The Independent Praise for Keith Lowe ‘Grimly absorbing, conveys the pity of war and its sorry aftermath with integrity and proper sympathy’ Ian Thompson, Sunday Telegraph ‘Moving, measured and provocative’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Graphic and chilling. This excellent book paints a little-known and frightening picture of a continent in the embrace of lawlessness and chaos’ Ian Kershaw ‘A powerful and disturbing book, painstakingly researched and written with both authority and an impressive historical sweep’ James Holland ‘An excellent account…Lowe's vivid descriptions of Europeans scrambling for scraps of food, rampant theft and 'destruction of morals' are a timely reminder that a certain humility is in order when we look at less fortunate continents today’ Brendan Simms, The Independent

PRAISE FOR PRISONERS OF HISTORY: A Spectator Book of the Year 2020 A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020 A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2020 ‘[An] inspired idea … Always thoughtful and evocative, sometimes controversial … Lowe’s sensitive, disturbing book should be compulsory reading for both statue builders and statue topplers. Too many memorials of all kinds seek to promote deceits or half-truths.’ MAX HASTINGS, THE SUNDAY TIMES ‘[A] brilliantly researched and timely book … Lowe is not afraid to tread on sensitive ground, but he does so with the integrity that comes from really knowing his material’ THE DAILY MAIL, FIVE STARS ‘Such a provocative perspective makes Lowe’s choice of monuments important. The well-balanced range here enables the retelling of some remarkable war stories, while also providing fascinating insights into the ways different nations have remembered or denied issues around national identity and the glory and horrors of war … this is some of the most thought-provoking writing about the Second World War that I have read for a long while’ SPECTATOR ‘In this timely book, which neatly combines history, art criticism and travelogue, Lowe examines 25 monuments to the Second World War spread across three continents … Lowe is a fine guide to these monuments because he feels the moral force — for good or bad — of each site he visits’ THE TIMES, BOOK OF THE WEEK PRAISE FOR PRISONERS OF HISTORY: A Spectator Book of the Year 2020 A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020 A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2020 ‘[An] inspired idea … Always thoughtful and evocative, sometimes controversial … Lowe’s sensitive, disturbing book should be compulsory reading for both statue builders and statue topplers. Too many memorials of all kinds seek to promote deceits or half-truths.’ MAX HASTINGS, THE SUNDAY TIMES ‘[A] brilliantly researched and timely book … Lowe is not afraid to tread on sensitive ground, but he does so with the integrity that comes from really knowing his material’ THE DAILY MAIL, FIVE STARS ‘Such a provocative perspective makes Lowe’s choice of monuments important. The well-balanced range here enables the retelling of some remarkable war stories, while also providing fascinating insights into the ways different nations have remembered or denied issues around national identity and the glory and horrors of war … this is some of the most thought-provoking writing about the Second World War that I have read for a long while’ SPECTATOR ‘In this timely book, which neatly combines history, art criticism and travelogue, Lowe examines 25 monuments to the Second World War spread across three continents … Lowe is a fine guide to these monuments because he feels the moral force — for good or bad — of each site he visits’ THE TIMES, BOOK OF THE WEEK

Author Information

Keith Lowe was born in 1970 and studied English Literature at Manchester University. After twelve years as a history publisher, he embarked on a full-time career as a writer and historian, and is now recognised on both sides of the Atlantic as an authority on the Second World War and its aftermath. He is the author of Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, and Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, which won the 2013 PEN/Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. In 2017 he published The Fear and the Freedom, to great acclaim. His books have been translated into twenty languages.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available