Attack Warning Red!

Fascinating

Sir Lawrence Freedman, author of Command

Brilliant and unforgettable ... A beautifully writtern horror story and amazing work of research ... Julie McDowall has made the unreadable compulsive and the unthinkable thinkable, but above all this is a book that cherishes humanity in all its absurdity, intelligence, vulnerability, courage and, against all odds, belief in hope and survival

Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake

Captivating, chilling, and at times darkly humorous. A fascinating insight into Britain's preparations for surviving Armageddon, and the ghastly reality of what the aftermath of a nuclear war would actually be like

Lewis Dartnell, author of The Knowledge

Impossible to believe, just as hard to put down. Urgent. Terrifying

Dan Snow, historian and host of History Hit

Cracking

Sunday Telegraph

So entertaining

The Times

How to prepare for Armageddon? Julie McDowell has written the best exploration yet of how successive British administrations grappled with the challenge of living under the shadow of nuclear war, with depth, compassion and very necessary dark humour

Prof. Mark Galeotti, author of The Weaponisation of Everything

Julie McDowall's thoroughly gripping study ... makes for genuinely startling and sometimes darkly funny reading... [it's] brilliantly chilling and sparkily engaging

Mail on Sunday

Attack Warning Red! is a timely reminder of the mind-blanking horror of nuclear warfare, as it menaces Europe once more

Sunday Times

Very good ... A sobering book, but a gripping one

Spectator

This by turns harrowing and farcical book charts the reality of living under constant threat of nuclear oblivion

iPaper

Timely ... harrowing ... farcical ... the most surprising aspect of Attack Warning Red!, however, is that, alongside generous helpings of fear and unease, it carries a strong charge of nostalgia

Scotland on Sunday

Attack Warning Red! effectively pulls together many strands from this unsettling aspect of British history and weaves them in a way that will alarm and entertain

BBC History Magazine

Simultaneously horrifying, weirdly nostalgic and darkly hilarious

Mark Haddon, author of The Porpoise

Superb ... a lucid, totally compulsive read from beginning to end, chilling as well as profoundly empathetic in tone

Mick Jackson, director of Threads

A fascinating read

Radio Times

An atomic Dad's Army, McDowall's history of the UK's nuclear civil defence is full of hilarious gems

Daily Telegraph

McDowall's book has the tone of a podcast [...] She leads her audience round bunkers, propaganda films and government records, pointing out the horrifying, the unexpected and the absurd

London Review of Books

Most interesting

Times Literary Supplement

An unsettling festive read

Soldier

Timely ... McDowall's excellent book is a chilling reminder of the horrific reality of nuclear war

Guardian *April 2024's Best Paperbacks*

Grimly funny reading… this grimly entertaining history of our preparation for mass destruction is both timely and troubling

Daily Mail

Fascinating ... a chilling glimpse of an alternative world

SFX Magazine