Narrates British foreign policy in the 1930s, relying on government records and personal papers to show Neville Chamberlain clung to once-respectable appeasement well after the dangers of Hitler’s Germany superseded the errors of World War I. The consequences were postponed rearmament, loss of any chance to head off the conflict, and near disaster in 1940. The consensus of appeasement comprised sympathy for rectifying the Versailles treaty, for great power conciliation (contra French obstruction), and limiting remilitarization, particularly aircraft. It further included strong belief in the League of Nations, and implicit opposition to an antebellum arms race. Chamberlain, who never attended university and so was uncomfortable with challenging debate, held an overmighty opinion of himself and was susceptible to Hitler’s flattery. Close allies Eden and Halifax were pushed away during a succession of events that gradually swung public opinion against status quo: occupation of the Rhineland, the Spanish Civil War, Anschluss, Czech occupation, Polish occupation. The author’s treatment of Soviet gambits, which Chamberlain correctly resisted as camouflaged aggression, is wrongheaded: although diplomatic papers don’t prove it, Stalin’s postwar behavior clearly shows his intent to aggrandize. Chamberlain was prepared to concede Hitler’s demands, if possible through Italian intervention, because he focused on independence (as determined by the UK) not territorial integrity; Eden’s exit from the cabinet made the policy his own. When Chamberlain finally allowed rearmament as a hedge, he focused on the navy and then the air force, despite the obvious threat of the new technology. His course neither deterred Germany nor made conciliation possible. (Aside: the possibility of the unseen moderate is plausible only if the extreme leader can be identified. Otherwise the leader is in fact the extremist and the policy is his.) Having drawn the main line, the author veers into problems presented by totalitarians in Spain and Japan, the latter threatening British economic interests in China, observing Chamberlain was too slow to pursue US support. This highlights the book’s understating Britain’s position as the world’s hegemon, but a declining one – the Athenian problem. Pursuant to which is treatment of Britain’s economic position, compromised by balance of payments shortfall and skilled labor shortage: the US recession of 1937 helped the British position. Chamberlain’s foreign policy dictated rearmament, at a slow pace. The Liberals offered no real alternative to the Conservative prime minister, but Winston Churchill’s presence offered a ‘duel’ comparable to Fox-Pitt or Gladstone-Disraeli; oddly, the author says Chamberlain’s policy has been ‘unfairly’ portrayed by the victor.