Chamberlain and the Lost Peace

ISBN-13: 9781566632478 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 271 str.

John Charmley

Opis

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 naive 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. "