Topic3 By Elise

Topic 3: what is the Blitz? What does the Blitz spirits mean?

Answer:

The Blitz was the period of World WarⅡwhere German Luftwaffe planes bombed Britain for a sustain nine months, from 7^th September 1940 to May 1941. Although some air raids could be found but there were still many people died and a large number of buildings were destroyed.

The Spirits of the Blitz is when people live with fear and homeless, they still try to help each other, rose to the occasion and did not give up. There were two key points why they maintain their faith. One of them was because St. Paul’s Cathedral was never destroyed. Another one is because of the spirits and efforts that are done by Churchill. Therefore the spirits of the Blitz means, especially shown by a group of people, that British people is stoicism and determination in a difficult or dangerous situation.

In addition, there is one more thing I have found very interesting. Some critics have called the Blitz Spirits a myth. An article I have found is talking about analyzing and examining how this myth was retold in British newspaper after the 7^th June 2012 bombing in London. This article makes me critical think about the Blitz Spirits.

What kind of sources would help you answer these questions? And construct your search terms.

Answer:

(01^st Oct 2013)

I start my topic with searching on the Google in order to get the basic idea about what is the Blitz. Because I need to make sure I would not search for the wrong information about the topic. What I can get is something below. These articles are all written on the history website or CBBC which I feel can be trust.

website of history

CBBC

Then, I start to use the online resources from library. I typed in ‘The Blitz’ first, and then I get 67,109 references which are shown related to my key word. Luckily I found three books are exactly named ‘The Blitz’.

results by 'The Blitz'

What I do next is that I check all those three authors and find out one of them, named Peter Chrisp, has recently released another version of ‘The Blitz’ in 2013. And both of these two books were labeled with history, war, battle of British. After that I find another two relevant books.

The book I want to borrow

Last but not least, although maybe I can get information about ‘the Blitz Spirits’ from these book, but I still need to see what I can get by typing in ‘the Blitz Spirits’ Additionally, I also want to get some information from some journals. The result is quite good. I find two articles are useful and though one of them I get some new judgments about ‘The Blitz Spirits’ which make me feel surprised.

(02^st Oct 2013)

Today I went library and try to find the book called ‘The Blitz’. Unfortunately I failed to find it although it is shown ‘available’. However I find other several interesting books that I did not discover it yesterday on the library website. In addition, I also find the book that I cannot make sure whether it is useful and I have read though the contents. The book has one chapter specify the blitz during the World war two.

Books are not in the search result but useful

List:

[BOOK] The Blitz (Peter Chrisp)

• Borrow it and check, because there are no contents on the website
• Unluckily, I failed to find this book, it’s shown off ‘available’, but it is no there.

[BOOK] Wartime: Britain 1939 – 1945 (Juliet Gardiner)

• In this book, it covered most of the important war between 1939–1945. I believe that ‘The blitz’ must be included.
• Today, I checked the contents for this book, there are one chapter exactly talked about the topic

[BOOK] The Blitz and tis legacy: wartime destruction to post-war reconstruction (Mark Clapson P.J Larkham)

• This book is totally talked about ‘the blitz’. What I need to do is just picking up some useful chapters

[BOOK]  The myth of The Blitz (Angus Calder)

• This book is totally talked about ‘the blitz’ and the myth of Blitz. I collect one from the library.

[JOURNAL] ‘Bomb Back, and Bomb Hard: Debating Reprisals during the Blitz’ (Holman, Brett)

• It is talked about the Blitz Spirits and the myth of the Blitz.

[JOURNAL] ‘The myth of the “Blitz spirits” in British newspaper responses to the July 7^th bombings’ (Darren Kelsey)

• It is also talked about the Blitz Spirits and the myth of the Blitz.