Fights for freedom: Africa, Britain and the Second World War

David Killingray’s ‘impressive’ synthesis of primary and secondary sources on Africans' contributions to the British Second World War effort ‘presents an excellent overview of the experiences of African soldiers called upon to fight in defence of their colonial master,’ writes Alex Free. Although ‘analytically inconsistent at times’, this does not detract from ‘what is a sophisticated and coherent narrative and encouraging antidote to historiography’s historical predilection for histories-from-above,’ says Free.