The Roots of Appeasement

Originally published in 1991, The Roots of Appeasement outlines the attitudes of the British weekly press and its editors to Nazism and to German and British foreign policies during the 1930s. It analyses and interprets the reasons which underlay those attitudes. Aided by the evidence of the weeklies, it sheds additional light on the roots and development of appeasement. After introducing the weeklies and their editors, the study conveys and examines their attitudes to the European crises of 1935-9 and one chapter focusses on the popular fear of air attack as reflected in the journals. The major conclusion of the book is that a consensus supporting appeasement emerged in the weeklies in the course of 1935 and that it remained virtually intact until September 1938.