Chamberlain and the Lost Peace

Author: John Charmley
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1461720923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Most studies of World War II assume that it was, in some way, a triumph for Britain. John Charmley’s important new reappraisal of the immediate origins of the war is based on extensive new work in the Chamberlain papers. It starts from Chamberlain’s belief that even a victorious war would be a disaster—it would destroy the foundations of British power and hand over Europe to Russian domination. Reconstructing Chamberlain’s policy assumptions, Mr. Charmley argues that they were neither naïve nor foolish. While focusing on the prime minister’s personality, he also shows that Chamberlain’s views were shared by many other leading politicians and diplomats. Mr. Charmley thus resurrects a whole school of thought on foreign policy which was forgotten in the wake of Churchill’s triumph. Unlike Churchill, Chamberlain was not prepared to gamble an empire; but events produced, according to Mr. Charmley, indeed a “human tragedy.” Early British reviews of the book have called it “important,” “entertaining and absorbing,” “concise and spirited,” and “provocative.” The Guardian wrote: “Chamberlain hardly emerges a hero from these pages, but at least there is no excuse left for regarding him as no more than a wimp in a wing-collar.”

Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement

Author: Robert J. Caputi
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910277
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
"The book details the course of that historiographical debate, beginning with the earliest accounts on appeasement from l938 through 1940.".

Neville Chamberlain

Author: Walter Reid
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
ISBN: 1788854829
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Book Description
Neville Chamberlain is remembered today as Hitler's credulous dupe, the man who proclaimed in September 1938 that the Munich agreement guaranteed 'peace in our time'. This is a magisterial reappraisal of Chamberlain and his legacy. It reveals the nuances of a complex and sensitive man who was a true radical and a man of passion, especially in all that concerned the welfare of his fellow citizens. As Minister of Health, Chancellor and Prime Minister, he presided over a fundamental modernisation of Britain, shuttingthe door on the Victorian age, ending free trade, improving living conditions and abolishing the Poor Law and the workhouse. Munich was much more than the traditional narrative suggests. Scarred by the death of his cousin in the First World War, Chamberlain was determined to ensure that a new generation was spared the tragic waste that had consumed their elders. Even so, he prepared for war while he worked for peace. The aircraft that won the Battle of Britain were built on his watch. He didn't win the Second World War, but it was he who ensured it wasn't lost in 1940.

Appeasement

Author: Tim Bouverie
Publisher:
ISBN: 0451499840
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 530

Book Description
"A new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich on the eve of World War II"--

The Cold War's Killing Fields

Author: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062367226
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 743

Book Description
A brilliant young historian offers a vital, comprehensive international military history of the Cold War in which he views the decade-long superpower struggles as one of the three great conflicts of the twentieth century alongside the two World Wars, and reveals how bloody the "Long Peace" actually was. In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part of a vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more than fourteen million dead—victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history. A superb work of scholarship illustrated with four maps, The Cold War’s Killing Fields is the first global military history of this superpower conflict and the first full accounting of its devastating impact. More than previous armed conflicts, the wars of the post-1945 era ravaged civilians across vast stretches of territory, from Korea and Vietnam to Bangladesh and Afghanistan to Iraq and Lebanon. Chamberlin provides an understanding of this sweeping history from the ground up and offers a moving portrait of human suffering, capturing the voices of those who experienced the brutal warfare. Chamberlin reframes this era in global history and explores in detail the numerous battles fought to prevent nuclear war, bolster the strategic hegemony of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and determine the fate of societies throughout the Third World.

Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement, and the British Road to War

Author: Frank McDonough
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719048326
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
Drawing on a wide range of material, including primary sources, Frank McDonough re-examines the controversial policy of appeasement, and argues that appeasement was part of a broad consensus in British society at the time.

Churchill: The End of Glory

Author: John Charmley
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571309402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 727

Book Description
Of the three revisionist works John Charmley has written about British foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century this is the centrepiece. The author argues that Churchill deserves more credit for 'their finest hour' than has been granted, but just as his virtues were built on the heroic scale, so too were his faults and failures. The statesman who had struggled to destroy Nazism and restore Europe's balance of power ended by allowing Stalin to dominate central and eastern Europe. This is no mere exercise in debunking, in many ways the complex man presented in these pages is more interesting than the more hagiographical portraits. 'This is not instant history run up to cause a sensation, but a meticulously documented reappraisal of Churchill's war leadership and of the career that led up to it. Nor is its tone contemptuous or vindictive. The author accepts that Churchill was a great man. His starting point is that even great men make mistakes.' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 'Probably the most important revisionist text to be published since the war.' Alan Clark, The Times

Lloyd George and the Lost Peace

Author: A. Lentin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230511481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
This lively and original book critically re-examines Lloyd George's part, crucial but enigmatic, in the 'lost peace' of Versailles, 1919-1940. In a re-examination of six key episodes 1919-1940, it reviews his protean role at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, his strategy on reparations, his abortive guarantee-treaty to France, and the emergence at the Conference of 'Appeasement'. It then reassesses his controversial visit to Hitler, and his bids to halt World War II after the fall of Poland and France.

Twilight of Truth

Author: Richard Cockett
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312031404
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description

Munich, 1938

Author: David Faber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439149925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538

Book Description
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing “Peace with honour—Peace for our time.” Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax’s ill-fated meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain’s secret discussions with Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler’s regime. He takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler. Resonating with an insider’s feel for the political infighting Faber uncovers, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and scandals upon which the world’s fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.