Neville Chamberlain - Couverture rigide

David Dutton

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0340706260 ISBN 13 : 9780340706268

Editeur : Arnold, 2001

Synopsis

Neville Chamberlain has gone down in the popular imagination as one of the "guilty men", culpable for exposing his country to the costs and humiliation of near-defeat. Yet for most of his life Chamberlain enjoyed a very favourable reputation; appeasement and even Munich won widespread popular support. Once war was declared, he was seen as a competent war leader, at least until March/April 1940. In this work David Dutton looks at the ways in which vilification of Neville Chamberlain developed after his fall from power, and examines historians' recent attempts at rehabilitation. The result is a study of the ebb and flow of the reputation of one of the 20th-century's most controversial politicians, posing questions not only about his conduct and the circumstances of his time, but also about the nature and uses of the historical evidence itself.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

In the early autumn of 1940, stricken with incurable cancer, Neville Chamberlain reflected upon the likely judgement of history upon his career. `Few men', he concluded, `can have known such a tremendous reverse of fortune in so short a time.' A little over two years before, following his dramatic flights to visit Hitler, Chamberlain had been lauded as the man who saved the world from the very brink of war. But the outbreak of that war in September 1939, the collapse of his own government in May 1940, and the military perils that soon followed set in motion a process that would leave him the most reviled, discredited Prime Minister of the twentieth century, the leading exponent of a disastrous and humiliating foreign policy, and the most culpable of the `Guilty Men'. Despite a mass of revisionist history over the last 30 years, the popular reputation of Neville Chamberlain remains that of a man taken in by Hitler, a man who really believed that he had won `peace for our time'.

Yet whatever the ultimate verdict on the policy of appeasement, Chamberlain's reputation deserves to be based on his career as a whole. Despite an enduring image as a right-wing Conservative, his most constructive work was carried out in the field of social reform. He was also seen at the time as a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer, who steered Britain out of the worst effects of the Depression, and a formidable party political manager.

David Dutton traces the evolution of Chamberlain's reputation, among contemporaries and those who have lived since, in the popular mind and in the changing evaluation of academic history, and gives his own appraisal of one of the most conspicuous political careers of the twentieth century.

Revue de presse

Dutton shows a remarkable command of the historiographical thickets, and leads the reader through its labyrinths lucidly and with commendable dry wit. (Times Literary Supplement)

The clarity of Dutton's prose, his adept use of the primary sources, and his command of the secondary literature will impress every reader. Indeed the book is an exemplary historiographical analysis. Dutton's study of Neville Chamberlain and his political career should be made compulsory reading for history undergraduates. (The International History Review 2003-03-11)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Arnold
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0340706260
• ISBN 13: 9780340706268
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 245
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible