New book publication: Oxford’s War 1939-1945 by Professor Ashley Jackson

Ashley Jackson, Professor of Imperial and Military History at King’s College London and Visiting Fellow at Kellogg, recently released his latest publication, Oxford’s War 1939-1945.

Ashley is part of the Defence Studies Department based at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom at Shrivenham in south Oxfordshire. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg since 2011, teaching the Postgraduate Certificate in Historical Studies, supervising master students, and acting as a college adviser. Last year Ashley coordinated the Kellogg College-Bletchley Park Week, which focused on the Second World War and the experience of Oxford and universities.

Oxford’s War 1939 – 1945 marks Ashley’s seventeenth book on the British Empire, various colonial regions, world wars and Churchill. The book discusses Oxford’s unique role in defending Britain in the Second World War. During the Blitz and beyond, thanks to its proximity to London, the city provided an alternative base for civil servants from the Ministry of Food, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Home Security, the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Works.

Drawing on first-hand narratives and material from University and college archives, this pioneering account reveals Oxford’s essential role in producing military intelligence, creating propaganda, and developing radar and the atomic bomb. It also explores the city’s role in bringing penicillin to market and laying the welfare state’s foundations.

Oxford’s War 1939 – 1945 is available to order from Amazon, Waterstones and the Bodleian Libraries.

His next book (with Andrew Stewart) Superpower Britain: The 1945 Vision and Why It Failed, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2025.