That Dunkirk represented a defeat for the British can surely no longer be doubted by anyone. It is, however, a fact that the saving of in excess of 300,000 British and French troops DID, whatever Mr Harman suggests, allow Britain to continue the war against ... Germany after the fall of France. Only in that context can the rather jaundiced term "miracle" be applied. Nevertheless at this stage the lack of a decisive victory for [Germany's] forces could well be considered a victory in a larger sense.

Mr Harman may well have researched this book thoroughly, but unfortunately he clearly only presented the facts that suited his own case. His constant use of Lidell-Hart, an alarming self publicist, and Fuller, a notorious member of the British Union of Fascists, as major sources stand only to illustrate this point. Equally his one sided presentation of the facts regarding Churchill and Edens' deliberations, in an attempt to promulgate the Petainist myth of "Perfidious Albion", illuminates this as an unsafe revisionist version of the truth. It is notable that works of this nature spring forth when those accused are entirely unable to answer the charges presented.

A significant amount of research wasted...