Historian Amy Bell (2009) interprets private diaries, psychologists' notes, and fiction written by Londoners during the war "to reveal the hidden landscapes of fear in a city at war." They feared loss of property, loss of their homes of their friends, destruction of the churches, and their own injury and death. Many saw London as a "potential canker in the heart of Imperial Britain," with British civilization highly vulnerable to internal weaknesses stemming from an "enemy within," specifically, the cowardice among those who remained in London during the war.