1945: The Reckoning: War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World

by Phil Craig

Packed with fresh and surprising stories, 1945: The Reckoning takes readers on a spectacular journey from the deadly jungles of Burma through hospital ships on Indian rivers and copper mines in Formosa to the 'lost trains' of the Belsen concentration camp. As the fate of the world is decided so too is that of the British Empire and in India millions of men and women struggle to decide whether to support 'the Raj' or fight alongside the Japanese. In Borneo a little known Australian special forces campaign - secretly controlled from London - goes horribly wrong as questions are asked about whether its true purpose is military or imperial.

Clearing away the haze of nostalgia, many uncomfortable truths emerge - but so too does a new and balanced analysis of Empire at this unsurpassed moment of global jeopardy. An Indian military family is bitterly divided. Will it be the brother who stands by the British, or the one who follows Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army, who goes on to help build a new and free India?

Genres: World War II, History

400 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 3, 2026

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

1945: The Reckoning - War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World provides the reader views into a key year in world history via Burma, India, Borneo, French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and the Bergen Belsen concentration camp through the eyewitness accounts of individual men and women who spent much of the war years in those respective venues.

Among the people given a voice here who stood out for me were: Kondandera Subayya Thimayya (aka "Timmy"), an Indian who by dint of luck and hard work, earned a place at Sandhurst prewar (Britain's equivalent of West Point) and upon returning home to India, an officer's commission in the Indian Army, where during the Second World War, he rose in rank and earned distinction in Burma commanding a large corps of troops in combat - by war's end, he would be a Brigadier, the highest ranking Indian in the Indian Army; the Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose who sided with the Axis Powers in his quest to achieve full independence for India; Angela Noblet, a young English nurse who volunteered for service in India, where she kept a diary detailing her experiences treating wounded and dying soldiers and civilians through much of the war; and Douglas Peterkin, a British Army captain and doctor, whose work in treating and bringing back to full health the survivors of Bergen Belsen the author manages to convey in such stark, compelling vividness.

As more and more people who lived through and experienced the Second World War are leaving us in ever increasing numbers, one of the best selling points about this book is its "humane and balanced exploration of what victory" in the war really meant to that generation of men and women, as well as its impact upon us today.

[Mark Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

1945 The Reckoning is an absolutely terrific popular history of a seminal year. Wide-ranging and full of fascinating insights and characters, you will be hard put to find a better history book published this year. I have never read this author before but am now most definitely prompted to visit his back catalogue. If you couldn’t already tell, I highly recommend this book!

[Matt Eaton]

thoughtful and nuanced analysis of final days of ww2 and its aftermath for the British Empire

[Paul French · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent study of both the struggle of Britain against militarism in Asia in WW2 and the reimposition of Empire. Told through personal accounts and experiences providing a very detailed, but human, lens on the end of the war in India, Burma and elsewhere in Asia.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book: great writing that flows and content that educates.

By structuring the narrative around individual histories, Phil Craig has given us a much better flavour of the final stages of WW2 that extend beyond the technical end of hostilities, when the fate of the world and the British Empire is decided "and in India millions of men and women struggle to decide whether to support 'the Raj' or fight alongside the Japanese". For this reader, the immediacy of the individual struggles makes a comprehensive “macro” description of everything that was happening less vital.

Particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two contrasting Indian male attitudes to British colonialism: Timmy (who rises up the ranks from within the British Army) vs. Bose (who becomes the messianic revolutionary).

The book gives us a balanced mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly of British behaviour in the final stages of WW2 that one never gets through the history taught at school, where at most all you hear the odd reference to the cruelty of the Japanese invaders and sent away to read A Town Like Alice. But fear not, there is also plenty of moving descriptions of the ugly behaviour of Germans and Japanese! Wars are never black and white.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a terribly written book this is ! Full of characters and names that you have to memorize like a computer, in addition to the fact there is nothing interesting or original here, unlike what is claimed on the jacket of this book. In shore:skip it!

[Mark Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it but would have liked more on non British Colonies.

[Joe Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fresh take on Britains empire, and the often forgotten battles of WW2. Phil is a great story teller, and grips you tight.