Neville Chamberlain

Description

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.

David Dutton is Professor of Twentieth-Century British Political History, University of Liverpool, UK

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