We Have Come to Be Destroyed

Laura Tisdall's 'We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain' examines how children and adolescents in Britain experienced and expressed the anxieties of the Cold War era, particularly the fear of nuclear war.

Using sources including cohort studies, school writing and activist material, Tisdall foregrounds young people's unfiltered voices rather than adult reinterpretations.

The book argues that nuclear threat was a shaping narrative for postwar generations, influencing activism, expectations of adulthood, and cultural production aimed at children.

Tisdall traces shifts in concepts of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood across the mid-to-late twentieth century and shows how these changes placed new burdens on parents and the state.

The study links private anxieties with broader social and political developments, situating youth culture within Cold War geopolitics.