Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Appeasement is a history of British foreign policy in the 1930s. Beginning with the accession of Hitler to the German chancellorship, continuing through the Munich Conference of 1938 to the attack on France and the Low Countries in 1940 the author traces the complete failure of the policy of appeasing Hitler and Mussolini.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is the most well-known of the appeasers, but appeasement was a popular policy, not just within the Chamberlain government but within society as a whole, simply because nobody wanted another large scale conflict after the First World War. There were “anti-appeasers” as well – most famously Winston Churchill – but they were a small group without a large following. We often think of the Munich Conference when we hear the word appeasement, but that was neither the beginning nor the end of appeasement.

The author has crafted a compelling narrative of this period. I am familiar with this period of history but I learned quite a few things. Of course we know how it all turns out: appeasement was a disaster. But there were so many opportunities to avoid the looming disaster that it is a fascinating and tragic story.