Neville Chamberlain, appeasement and the British road to war

by Frank McDonough, Mark Greengrass (Editor)

Overview

Re-examines the controversial policy of appeasement. The text suggests that the mood of the age in British society served to support appeasement, by analyzing the cluster of military, strategic, imperial and economic forces which served to justify it. The book argues that, when Neville Chamberlain came to power, appeasement was part of a broad consensus in British society to avoid a second world war. It provides an interpretation of Chamberlain's conduct by showing how he used and abused the mood of the age to justify a selfish and ambitious policy which was idealogically prejudiced. Yet, when Hitler entered Prague in March 1939, the public mood changed, and Chamberlain found himself a prisoner of a new mood which forced him to make a tactical and half-hearted attempt to stand up to Hitler for which he had no enthusiasm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780719048326
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	01/08/1998
Series:	New Frontiers
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Frank McDonough is Senior Lecturer in Modern Political History at Liverpool John Moores University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction: the changing debate
Part I Appeasement and British government 1918–1939
2. British foreign policy, 1918–1937
3. National defence
4. Chamberlain’s new direction, May 1937–February 1938
5. The road to Munich, March–September 1938
6. The approach of war, October 1938–September 1939
Part II Appeasement and British society 1918–1939
7. Appeasers and the anti-appeasers
8. The mass media, public opinion and appeasement
9. Economic appeasement
10. Conclusion
Selected documents
Select bibliography
Inde

Editorial Reviews

Argues that the British Prime Minister believed a second world war would be disastrous for his country and focused all his energies on preventing it. Draws evidence from primary and secondary sources that he used the then-popular notion of a collective international movement for peace rather than take a position of national self-interest as Churchill did. Finds that his flawed political judgement led to his ill-suited response to the obvious failure of appeasement in 1939, which in turn led to the outbreak of war. Distributed in the US by St. Martin's Press. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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