page_title: Diplomatic history
section_title: Causes of World War Two
hierarchical_section_title: Diplomatic history / Historiography / Causes of World War Two
caption_attribution_description: English: Counsellor of state Juho Kusti Paasikivi arriving from negotiations in Moscow 16 October 1939. From left Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen, J.K. Paasikivi, Johan Nykopp and Aladár Paasonen.Suomi: J.K. Paasikivi seureineen palaamassa neuvottelumatkaltaa Moskovasta 16.10.2009. Vasemmalla Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen, keskellä Paasikivi ja hänestä oikealla jaostopäällikkö Johan Nykopp sekä eversti Aladár Paasonen.
context_page_description: Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals with relations between two or more states. Diplomatic history tends to be more concerned with the history of diplomacy, but international relations concern more with current events and creating a model intended to shed explanatory light on international politics.
context_section_description: Sir Winston Churchill's multi-volume The Second World War, especially the first volume The Gathering Storm (1948) set the framework and the interpretation for much later historiography.  His interpretation, echoing his own position before the war, that World War II was caused by the mad ambitions of Adolf Hitler; Churchill damned the cowardly and weak-willed British and French leaders who used appeasement in a futile effort to avoid the war. Churchill did not consider the argument that the alternative to appeasement was a premature war that Germany would win in 1938. The British historian A. J. P. Taylor's 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War challenged Churchill's viewpoint and argued that Hitler had no master-plan for conquering the world. Instead he was an ordinary statesman –-an opportunistic leader seizing whatever chances he had for expansionism. The fact that a world war started over Poland in 1939 was due to diplomatic miscalculation by all the countries concerned, instead of being a case of German aggression.  British historians such as D.C. Watt, Paul Kennedy, George Peden and David Dilks argued that appeasement was not an aberration, and that it was an old British tradition which in this case flowed from numerous structural, economic and military factors. Historians such as Christopher Thorne and Harry Hinsley abandoned the previous focus on individual leaders to discuss the broader societal influences such as public opinion and narrower ones like intelligence on diplomatic relations. In recent years the debates regarding the 1930s have continued, but new approaches are in use, such as an analysis in terms of Britain's national identity.
caption: After the Second World War, J. K Paasikivi (in the middle), the 7th President of the Republic of Finland, was remembered as a main architect of Finland's foreign policy, especially with the Soviet Union, which was at that time the war enemy of Finland.[4]
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