My Amazon Review of Tim Boverie's "Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler and Churchill and the Road to War"

Chamberlain in the Dock of History

In his first effort writer Tim Bovererie has written an extraordinary narrative history of the machinations of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party to first appease Hitler and then gradually turn toward a full confrontation with the evil dictator. Boverie is not a professional historian and is probably under 30 years of age, yet his book jacket has encomiums from such stalwarts as Margaret Macmillan, Ian Kershaw and Max Hastings. They are all deserved.

Although the story has been told many times before, Boverie brings us fresh sources that go to the motivations of the major players. He puts us in the room with Chamberlain, Halifax, Eden, Baldwin and of course, Churchill. The villains of the piece are Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin ignored the peril of Hitler and while Chamberlain recognized the danger he simply did not want to fight. He truly was the architect of the appeasement policy thinking against all logic that Hitler could be reasoned with. By failing to heed the warnings of Churchill he sentenced Europe to the abyss of World War II.

One of the things I learned from Boverie’s book is that Anthony Eden was not the anti-appeasement hero I thought he was. In reality he was kind of a wimp. I didn’t realize that Hitler thought the abdication of Edward VIII was a big loss. In fact he was part of coterie pro-Nazi anti-Semites within the upper strata of British society. That along with their anti-communism made it very difficult for Chamberlain to make a deal with Soviet Russia.  

On the other hand, I would have liked to know more about how the Labour Party switched from its pacifism of the early 1930s to its full-throated opposition to Hitler by 1939.  This turnabout enabled Labour to become partners with Churchill in the unity government of 1940.

With this very well written book Boverie has proved himself to be a historian of the first order. I wish him well in his future endeavors.

The full amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/review/R3639OEBYMSYX3/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv