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    Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture
    Unavailable
    Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture
    Unavailable
    Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture
    Audiobook10 hours

    Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture

    Written by Joshua Levine

    Narrated by Jonathan Keeble and Leighton Pugh

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

    THE EPIC TRUE STORY OF DUNKIRK - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN AND STARRING KENNETH BRANAGH, TOM HARDY AND MARK RYLANCE.

    In 1940, at the French port of Dunkirk, more than 300,000 trapped Allied troops were dramatically rescued from destruction at the hands of Nazi Germany by an extraordinary seaborne evacuation. The true history of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians involved in the nine-day skirmish has passed into legend. Now, the story Winston Churchill described as a 'miracle' is narrated by bestselling author Joshua Levine in its full, sweeping context, including new interviews with veterans and survivors.

    Told from the viewpoints of land, sea and air, Joshua Levine’s Dunkirk is a dramatic account of a defeat that paved the way to ultimate victory and preserved liberty for generations to come.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateJun 29, 2017
    ISBN9780008227890
    Author

    Joshua Levine

    Joshua Levine has written seven bestselling history books including several titles in the Forgotten Voices series. Born in the Bahamas, he was a criminal barrister in a previous life. He lives in London.

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    Reviews for Dunkirk

    3.5/5

    21 ratings4 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This book spends a lot of time talking about the movie and connecting the movie with the event. Ah, not my kind of book.
    • 4/5
      I hadn't seen the movie ('heard it bombed) but I didn't at all mind the descriptions of the filming challenges. There are several important aspects to cover here, and as a result there's redundancy and a non-chronological flow to this book. The event is less that 10 days and the story (eg, the beach over the 10 days, the small boats over the 10 days, the RAF over the ten days, etc.) sometimes impedes the narrative story line. The story itself saves the day.
    • 5/5
         We saw the movie, and as I've always carried a soft spot for this moment in history — it was a time that my grandfather spoke of as something quite special to him — I then felt like I needed even more information about this time. Certainly it came right on the heels of a series of disastrous defeats for the Allied forces (British, French, Belgians) in France, but when all was said and done, the British were most of the mindset that they had pulled together and created a huge success, an incredible evacuation of hundreds of thousands of troops trapped on a beach almost within sight of the British coast. Even the troops were surprised when the British population saw them as heroes, instead of failures. There was a hope that renewed the spirit of the nation.   The book supplied so much of the history and facts behind what I thought was an excellent example of film as a piece of art. This isn't to say that I won't be reading more on this time period. The power of hope in England at this time feels like something I would like to experience more of in my present orange-Cheetos-funk.  
    • 5/5
      Christopher Nolan, the creative genius behind The Dark Knight (Batman), Inception and Memento turns his eye next to Dunkirk, which tells the true story of a major British military evacuation off the coast of Belgium during WWII.Dunkirk is based on a book of the same name by historian Joshua Levine. Levine's 2011 book has been updated for the upcoming movie release, and it is bookended with an interview between Levine and Nolan at the beginning of the book about why Nolan chose this project, and a chapter at the end of the book discussing the process of making the movie, including comments from members of the production team. Movie buffs will love these extra chapters, giving them a fascinating insight into the process of moviemaking.History buffs will love the actual story of Operation Dynamo itself. I confess to not being a big military history reader, so the sections of the book I found most intriguing had to do with the historical perspective of the events that led up to Britain's involvement in WWII.Great Britain was still reeling from the effects of WWI, fought nearly twenty years prior. They lost an entire generation of men in WWI, and the thought of losing another generation to a war with Germany was not one that many people wanted to contemplate.The worldwide depression severely impacted Great Britain, with unemployment high. With no system of welfare, there was tension between the classes, and extreme political parties were able to gain a foothold exploiting this. One can see echoes of this in today's world events as well.Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed that he could work with Hitler's Nazi government to avoid war. He was accused of appeasement, and this led to the election of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of Great Britain during the most trying time in history.Churchill approved the plans for Operation Dynamo, which called for the evacuation of as many as 40,000 British troops from Dunkirk. The Germans were about to surround the British and French troops, and in order to save the troops from a certain slaughter or capture, they must arrange for an evacuation. Failure to save these troops would mean that the Allies would most likely lose the war, and the world today would be a much different place if that had happened.The book goes into great detail about the actual logistics of the evacuation, a monumental task. Every available military and private ship and boat was recruited to make the trip to Dunkirk to ferry the soldiers back to England. There are many remembrances from people who make that voyage, and they are so interesting.The troops were sent to the beach, and with tens of thousands of soldiers along the beach, some for many days, it became a little city of its own. Men played cards, built small shelters, and waited and waited until it was their turn to wade out in to the sea to be rescued, all while being attacked from the sky by German airplanes.Levine compared this scene to the one of refugees from war and poverty who are taking any form of floating apparatus to get to the shores of Greece and Italy, an apt comparison.Dunkirk is a fascinating look at a historical event that many people don't know about. While some people felt that this event was a story of a failed battle, Levine looks at it as an incredible story of survival. The goal was to save 40,000 troops, and the reality was that over 260,000 troops were rescued from the shores of Dunkirk, an astonishing number.England used Dunkirk as a rallying cry and people in England today still speak of the "Dunkirk Spirit" when talking about bucking up and working together to achieve a goal that seems unattainable.I highly recommend Dunkirk for movie fans, history and military history buffs.