Book description
On 30 September 1938 Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his
meeting at Munich with the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. As he paused
on the aircraft steps, he held aloft the piece of paper which bore both
his and the Führer's signature, the promise that Britain and Germany
would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing
'Peace with honour - Peace for our Time.'
Drawing on a wealth of original archival material, David Faber sheds
new light on this extraordinary story, tracing the key incidents
leading up to the meeting at Munich and its immediate aftermath: Lord
Halifax's ill-fated visit to Hitler; Chamberlain's secret negotiations
with Mussolini, and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler's régime. He
takes us to Vienna, to the Sudetenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we
witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war; and in London, we watch
helplessly as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to
appease Hitler.
'A masterwork of advocacy'
Daily Mail
5/9
'Faber has made an important contribution to our
understanding of the diplomatic debacle which signalled the start of
the Second World War'
John Crossland, Independent on Sunday
21/9
'David Faber's account of the Munich crisis has been
published to mark the 70th anniversary of the four-power conference
that made appeasement a dirty word. But it is timely as well as
commemorative. True, the recent comparisons drawn between Hitler and
Putin are misplaced. Nonetheless, Western politicians are finding
themselves debating the same sort of issues over Georgia - with
Ukraine and the Baltic States to follow - that divided their forebears
over Hitler's Czechoslovakian demands in 1938. Are national boundaries
inviolate or subject to revision along ethnic grounds? Would offering
guarantees to small countries protect them or make confrontation from
their big neighbour more certain? Most fundamental of all, to what
extent should concessions be forced from what Neville Chamberlain once
called 'people of whom we know nothing' in order to preserve the peace
and quiet of the rest of us? ... Faber has written a compelling work
of narrative history' The Spectator 27/9
'Given how indispensable
an insult “appeasement” has since become in our political discourse,
it's eerie to find, in Faber's absorbing account, just how thoroughly
at ease so many people were with the idea back in the 1930s. While
there were some who saw through it - most notably Churchill, of course
- it's a shock to see how happy most people appear to have been to let
themselves be fooled, and to accept the claim that this was “peace
with honour”'
The Scotsman 27/9
Historians analyse;
novelists dramatise. But a historian who wants to be widely read must
also possess the novelist's verve and brio. David Faber, grandson of
Harold Macmillan, belongs to that very select number. He proves it
unequivocally in his magnificent study of the Munich crisis
publishedin September to mark its seventieth anniversary . . . Faber
takes us on a superb historical tour - from London to the cities of
Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Paris and Prague - to explain how Chamberlain
reached this moment of glory which was to turn so rapidly to dust . .
. For most of the last seventy years Munich has inspired deep, moral
revulsion. It is time for a more measured judgment. If you read only
one book of political history this year, read this one'
My book
of the year - Munich 70 years on
Alistair Cooke, Sunday, November
2 2008
'Faber's account is lucid and absorbing. Drawing on a wide
range of sources, he is able to flesh out a vivid depiction of the
episode and its chief protagonists - Chamberlain, Mussolini, and, of
course, Hitler himself'
Family History Monthly, Nov issue
'Offers a day-by-day - and, in its later stages, an hour-by-hour -
narrative of the diplomatic shenanigans that preceded Hitler's
two-phased invasion of Czechoslovakia'
Daily Telegraph
15/11
'[Munich] offers compelling character sketches of leading
dramatis personae such as Sir Neville Henderson, whom a fellow
diplomat described as 'Hitler's ambassador to us, rather than ours to
Hitler.' It provides some new details culled from wide reading and
archival research. It even contains a photograph of the Swastika being
raised over Cardiff's City Hall on Oct 2nd, 1938, by order of the Lord
Mayor, to celebrate Neville Chamberlain's triumph'
History Today,
Dec issue
'Faber tells a lively story ... fleshed out with a lot
of informative, sometimes amusing detail ... thorough, well-researched
and easy to read' Literary Review
'A brilliant recreation of a
year which I imagined (quite wrongly) I knew everything about. It is
interesting to note that Chamberlain comes out of it even worse that
the traditional view, Churchill better and most of the other
politicians badly, with the exception of Duff Cooper and, of course,
Anthony Eden'
Antonia Fraser, History Today, Dec
issue
'David Faber adds to his already considerable reputation as
a shrewd analyst of twentieth century politics with this new study of
the Munich Crisis. Firmly based on primary sources, some previously
unused, the book is a sparkling and perceptive account of events that
still resonate seventy years on.' D. R. Thrope
'A
fascinating reconstruction of one of the most squalid events in
European diplomatic history. After reading his book it is to be hoped
that apologists for Chamberlain will stop apologising'
Ronald
Harwood, Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph 30/11
David Faber was educated at Eton College and
Balliol College, Oxford University, where he read modern languages.
The grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Faber
served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1992 until 2001,
and now is a historian and writer. He is author of Speaking for
England and lives in London with his wife and their three
children.
