page_title: Frank McDonough
section_title: Neville Chamberlain and appeasement
hierarchical_section_title: Frank McDonough / Work / Neville Chamberlain and appeasement
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Münchener Abkommen, Staatschefs Zentralbild Das Münchner Abkommen vom 29.9.1938. Das am 29.9.1938 in München zwischen dem britischen Ministerpräsidenten Neville Chamberlain, dem französischen Ministerpräsidenten Edouard Daladier, dem italienischen Staatschef Benito Mussolini und Adolf Hitler geschlossene Abkommen ermächtigte das faschistische Deutschland zur Annexion tschechoslowakischen Gebietes. UBz: von links: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, und der italienische Außenminister Graf Galeazzo Ciano. Im Hintergrund v.l.n.r. Unbekannter (wahrscheinlich ein brite Diplomat), Fromageot, Ribbentrop, Weizsäcker, Leger alias Saint-John Perse. 12 766-38 [Scherl Bilderdienst] Abgebildete Personen: Neville Chamberlain, Premierminister, Großbritannien Graf Galeazzo Ciano, Außenminister, Italien (GND 119178362) Édouard Daladier, Ministerpräsident, Vorsitzender Sozialistische Partei, Frankreich Henri Fromageot, Diplomat, Frankreich Adolf Hitler, Reichskanzler, Deutschland Alexis Leger alias Saint-John Perse, Generalsekretär des Aussenministeriums, auch Dichter, Schriftsteller und Nobelpreisträger für Literatur, Frankreich Benito Mussolini, Ministerpräsident, Regierungschef, Chef des Faschistischen Großrates, Italien Joachim von Ribbentrop, deutscher Außenminister Freiherr Ernst von Weizsäcker, Diplomat, Staatssekretär im Auswärtigen Amt, SS-Führer, Deutschland Information added by Wikimedia users.Русский: После подписаний Мюнхенских соглашений 1938 года. Слева направо: Чемберлен, Даладье, Гитлер, Муссолини, Чиано.
context_page_description: Frank McDonough is a British historian of the Third Reich and international history.
context_section_description: In his study of Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War, published in 1998, McDonough outlined a 'post revisionist' theory, which built on the work of R. A. C. Parker's 1994 book Chamberlain and Appeasement, by expanding it to include appeasement in society and looking at economic appeasement, the mass media and the opponents of appeasement. McDonough accepted that appeasement was probably the only choice for the British government in the 1930s, but unlike the revisionists he argued that it was poorly implemented, carried out too late and not enforced strongly enough to constrain Hitler. He suggested that appeasement must be analysed as a usable policy at the time it operated and focus on how Chamberlain's personality played a crucial role in the conduct of the policy, in particular, his errors of judgement, his failure to listen to opponents and his unwillingness to try any alternatives. McDonough argues that Chamberlain's version of appeasement, as operated by such an inflexible politician, unwilling to change direction, until events forced him to, actually contributed to Britain and France entering the war in 1939 in a much weaker strategic position, and passed the early advantage in the war to Hitler's regime, which meant that Germany only faced one European front until June 1944.
  The study was reviewed in academic journals. Parker described it as "very well written, with a lively argument, which explores appeasement in society too". Andrew Thorpe, a leading authority on foreign affairs, described the book as "a cogent and stimulating analysis of appeasement which will take the debate still deeper". A leading US historian of foreign affairs from the Reed College, Edward B. Segel, commented: "The book brings out effectively how the British government manipulated the mass-media, the press and especially the BBC to exclude public criticism of Chamberlain's policies and convey the impression of overwhelming support".
  McDonough is one of the most prominent 'post-revisionist' experts on Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement, along with Parker, who was, as Sydney Aster points out, his "academic mentor while he was at Oxford".
caption: The Munich Conference. Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "50", "Image YResolution": "50", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:02:08 18:18:52", "Image ExifOffset": "168", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "306", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6603", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "548"}