Product Description

Hitler, Mussolini and Japan posed a terrible threat to Britain and its empire. With America withdrawn into isolationism and Stalin's Russia hostile to the West, it is hardly surprising that Britain strove to sustain peace for as long as possible by the traditional tools of diplomacy and accommodation. Stigmatised as 'Appeasement', this has often been held to be a bankrupt policy, epitomised by Chamberlain's Munich Agreement in 1938, handing over the Sudetenland. "Hitler and Appeasement" shows, in contrast, that many of the government's policies were reasonable and well-thought-out; nor did ministers ignore rearmament. After the appalling experiences of the First World War, no one in Britain wished to be in another war. It was only the unpredictable catastrophes of the Russo-German agreement of 1939 and the Fall of France in 1940 that cast Appeasement into disrepute, leaving stains on the reputations of Baldwin and Chamberlain that are little deserved.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #422692 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Peter Neville is a Teaching Fellow at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Holocaust.

Customer Reviews

Not another revisionist tome
This book is well researched and generally well written.It starts in the First World War to explain the beginings of appeasement and introduces us to the main players.Unfortunately after that it is all downhill.Virtually everything Churchill said and did during the period is critiscised whereas everything Chamberlain and his cronies is excused and even vindicated.It really wont wash.What he cannot get around is the way that Chamberlain cruelly betrayed the Czechs.I was not alive at the time but it makes me ashamed.What was Chamberlain doing at tMunich if he was not prepared to go to war.Merely trying to prevent the UK being involved.The fact that he did not take the Foreign Secretary with him and completely misjudged the character of Hitler are examples of his arrogance.Particularly when you remember his infamous broadcast about a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom WE know nothing.The author tries and fails to excuse the inexcusable.So i would say that if you want a book that looks at the question of appeasement objectively this is not it.There are better books about on the subject than this.