Gilbert and Gott, as two young Oxford historians in 1963, wrote this compelling account of how a whole important branch of foreign policy was developed, how it was carried out, and why it was misconceived. The pre-war administration of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ignored its advisors and pursued a policy of appeasement in the mistaken belief that it would cause an end to Hitler's plans.
The official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history. Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
Loved it,don't know how much is true.I can't help compare how some people blame Nato and the Ukraine for the Putin invasion with how others blamed Czechosolvakia and Poland for Hitler's actions.