This book examines British attempts to wage political warfare in the countries occupied by Germany in the Second World War. It describes the slow construction of political warfare machinery in London in terms of two twin difficulties: Whitehall politics and fundamental doubts about what a successful war should have as its purpose. It then examines how political warfare operated as a semi-detached adjunct of diplomacy, and how it engaged with the development of armed or "active" resistance in France, Denmark, Poland, and Yugoslavia.

This is a study of British political imagination in a period when Britain still acted as a great power in control of her own decisions. The experience of near-defeat, however, left decision-makers with dilemmas about rhetoric and ideology as much as policy.Their refusal to resolve these dilemmas until pushed by events meant political warfare lacked the consistency and definition that might have given it greater force.