Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940–1945 by Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp, 2013 East Lansing, MI, Michigan State University Pressx + 300 pp., £47.50 (hb)

Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp’s impressive monograph succeeds on at least two levels. First, as intended, it presents a new theory of resistance to military occupation – rhetorical resistance – which is derived from the response to the German occupation of Guernsey during the Second World War and applicable to all situations where there is ‘an extreme power differential’ (p.238) between occupier and occupied. Second, despite the focus on diaries and interviews, the work places the personal narratives of the islanders in the context of the public events in which they participated, providing a history which is perfectly pitched between individual experiences and the overall political picture. Jorgensen-Earp’s approach is ‘from the perspective of rhetorical theory’ (p.147), but her rigour and clarity meet the highest standards of the analytic tradition of philosophy, and every premise of her argument is supported by solid empirical evidence. As such, the study makes a significant contribution to the ethical issues surrounding collaboration and has implications for both the ethics of war and transitional justice.