Appeasement and Rearmament: Britain, 1936D1939
It will be readily agreed that [Levi] has produced a lively argument that will stimulate discussion. (War in History, April 2008)Forty years after his death, Winston Churchill's self-serving demonisation of the appeasers of the 1930s still holds the center-ground of popular historiography. It has much to answer for. Any political inadequate on the world stage can invite Churchillian comparison merely by curtailing diplomatic processes and urging pre-emptive aggression. In fact, diplomacy had impressive 'form' in British foreign policy—for example, towards France in the early 1900s, and towards the USA in the 1920s. And given Britain's strategic, political and economic situation, it made both pragmatic and ethical sense in the late '30s. James P. Levy's succinct and beautifully written synthesis of the case for the tandem policies of appeasement and rearmament places them in their proper context and relationship. It is a sorry indictment of the objectivity of the historical profession that such a book should still be so necessary. (Andrew Gordon, King's College London)