The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement

Book excerpt: Focusing on the Cold War and the post-Cold War eras, R. Gerald Hughes explores the continuing influence of Appeasement on British foreign policy and re-evaluates the relationship between British society and Appeasement, both as historical memory and as a foreign policy process. The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement explores the reaction of British policy makers to the legacies of the era of Appeasement, the memory of Appeasement in public opinion and the media and the use of Appeasement as a motif in political debate regarding threats faced by Britain in the post-war era. Using many previously unpublished archival sources, this book clearly demonstrates that many of the core British beliefs and cultural norms that had underpinned the Chamberlainite Appeasement of the 1930s persisted in the postwar period.