The avoidable war: Lord Cecil and the policy of principle, 1932-1935. Volume 1Transaction Publishers - 389 páginas As historian Gordon Craig has observed, "Americans are deeply ambivalent about history, choosing instead to follow the imperative of moral absolutes; they are uncomfortable with the idea of national interest as a guiding principle of policy, preferring motivations that are nobler." What does the national interest require? What does morality command? These issues bedevil us in Bosnia and Rwanda today as they did yesterday in the Persian Gulf and in Somalia. Such questions were fully played out in the era that led up to the dominant event of our century, the Second World War. The Avoidable War details how the war, its destruction, and its consequences could have been avoided. This original interpretation of history also provides insights into ways of preserving peace that can guide contemporary diplomacy. J. Kenneth Brody describes an incomparable galley of characters: a chief villain, Hitler; a thoughtful, conflicted, and human Mussolini; a fatuous Ramsey MacDonald; an uncharacteristically silent William Churchill; a smaller than life Stanley Baldwin. Above all, he rescues from undeserved obscurity the noble and inspiring figure of Lord Robert Cecil providing a thorough, controversial reappraisal and sympathetic portrait of Pierre Laval, his policy, and his character. Brody is the first to tell the story of the Peace Ballot, the first modern public opinion poll, created by Cecil in 1935. In this privately organized referendum on issues of war and peace, the British voted overwhelmingly in support of disarmament and morality rather than the national interest. Unfortunately its results helped bring on the war they worked so hard to avoid as, instructed by the Peace Ballot, the British met brute force with arms limitations proposals, the love of peace, and exalted ideals. Under cover of those ideals they betrayed a trusting ally, France. In doing so, they reaped a whirlwind of wartime consequences. The first of a two-volume series sheds new and original light on the origins of the Second World War. It is a study of both modern British history and a period of French history usually consigned to darkness. It also explores the role of morality in policymaking. This is a very human story of the passionate devotion to peace and justice of the proponents of the Peace Ballot and their supporters, and of the paradoxical and perverse result they achieved. |
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... thought to be the world's finest , and as powerful on the land as the Royal Navy was on the seas . To these forces were added the costly and complex defensive works of the Maginot Line . But the most important protection afforded to ...
... thought had prepared him to seize the idea and carry it with matchless skill and devotion to the whole of Britain and , indeed , to the world . The consequences would be profound . Lord Cecil On February 8 , 1934 the results of the ...
... thought , was religion , and Christian doctrine and Chris- tian morality were essential in opposing the appeal to arms . But at the same time , his religion was personal and direct ; he saw little need for an intermediary between a ...
... thought war was a normal method of conducting affairs and resented public intrusion into their domains , especially when the public didn't agree with them . Cecil thought that education and com- munications had changed the world and ...
... thought a half million responses would represent real success . They could hardly have foreseen the fervent appeal of the Peace Ballot to the British public or the avalanche of votes that would pour in before the final results were ...
Conteúdo
1 | |
7 | |
15 | |
27 | |
Mussolini | 33 |
AngloSaxon Attitudes | 45 |
Adolf Hitler | 61 |
Arms Control1932 | 85 |
Voting For Peace | 173 |
An Abyssinian Incident | 201 |
A Double Challenge | 219 |
Stresa | 263 |
Arms Control1935 | 287 |
The Triumph of the Peace Ballot | 309 |
Notes | 337 |
Bibliography | 361 |
The German Challenge | 99 |
France and the German Challenge | 125 |
Britain and the German Challenge | 141 |
Index | 367 |