World War II and its attendant horrors arguably began in the British policy of appeasement of the Nazi rise to power between the First and Second World Wars.
In this compelling telling, Martin Gilbert walks the reader through several decades of behavior that, in retrospect, is hard to accept. Gilberts incisive focus on primary sources uncovers the real reasons for the appeasement policy, from the search for a just peace to attempts to avoid another war at all costsilluminating the historical underpinnings of a fatally flawed policy, and its tragic consequences for the Jewish people.
The book also contains a chronology of appeasement policy as well as five specially drawn maps and five appendicesincluding a transcript of British statesman and politician David Lloyd Georges conversation with Hitler at Berchtesgaden in 1936.