Although always popular, revisionist history is an area fraught with pitfalls. This is because, fundamentally, most historians are not idiots, and the standard version of history is more often than not broadly correct. Archives may be opened, errors corrected, and characters added to the storyline, but truly revolutionary reinterpretations, at least sane ones, are uncommon.

Kit Kowol’s first book, Blue Jerusalem: British Conservatism, Winston Churchill, and the Second World War, released at the end of 2024, achieves the rare feat of fundamentally revising our understanding of British politics and society during the Second World War and, with it, our interpretation of what happened next. Despite its subtitle, it is not a Churchill book, although he does figure here and there. Instead, Kowol’s thesis, which goes far beyond Churchill, is, “The Conservative Party lost the 1945 general election but won the Second World War.”