Grayzel Susan R. At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. — 343 p.Although the Blitz has come to symbolize the experience of civilians under attack, Germany first launched air raids on Britain at the end of 1914 and continued them during the First World War. With the advent of air warfare, civilians far removed from traditional battle zones became a direct target of war rather than a group shielded from its impact. This is a study of how British civilians experienced and came to terms with aerial warfare during the First and Second World Wars. Memories of the World War I bombings shaped British responses to the various real and imagined war threats of the 1920s and 1930s, including the bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War and, ultimately, the Blitz itself. The processes by which different constituent bodies of the British nation responded to arrival of air power reveal the particular role that gender played in defining civilian participation in modern war.Introduction: modern war and the militarization of domestic lifeDestroying the innocent: the arrival of the air raid, 1914-1916Redefining the battle zone: responding to intensified aerial warfare, 1917-1918Writing and rewriting modern warfare: memory, representation, and the legacy of the air raid in Interwar BritainInventing civil defense: imagining and planning for the war to comeTrying to prevent the war to come: efforts to remove the threat of air raidsFacing the future of air power: air raids abroad and reactions at homePreparing the public for the next war: air raid precautions on the eve of warProtecting the innocent: gas masks for babies and the domestication of air raid precautionsResponding to the air war's return: the militarized domestic sphere from September '28 to the BlitzRepresenting the new air war: morale, the air raid, and wartime popular cultureConclusion: Air raids and the domestication of modern war