POPULAR NEWSPAPERS DURING WORLD WAR II

Part 2: 1940 (The Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, the News of the World, The People & the Sunday Express)

Popular newspapers were one of the primary means through which ordinary people in Britain received their news about the war.  They now provide an excellent and immediate source for students and scholars alike, describing the progress of the war and its impact on the home front.  The papers provide:

• Hundreds of thousands of photographs and maps - making the war more intelligible and reducing it to a human scale.  The Daily Mirror printed wonderful pictures of the Queen walking amongst the devastation of the London Blitz and The People's 'Cavalcade of the Blitz' brings together pictures of heroes with accounts of the deeds of individual firemen, ARP wardens and police officers.
• Detailed accounts of the latest developments whether on the home front or the battlefield.  How was Dunkirk transformed from a humiliating retreat into a morale-boosting episode?
• Insightful articles by leading writers and politicians, such as Somerset Maugham describing his visit to Strasbourg in the News of the Worldand Herbert Morrison writing in The Daily Mirror and advising Prime Minister Chamberlain to "GET OUT!"
• Masses of material for the study of popular culture, ranging from film and theatre reviews to regular football and cricket reports from writers such as Alex James, Henry Cotton and Freddie Fox.

Part 2 covers 1940, when the war fanned out across Europe and civilian populations in Britain were subjected to mass bombing attacks.  It was the year that Japan joined the war and Britain launched its offensive in North Africa.