Book Review: Neville Chamberlain, all Souls and Appeasement: A Contribution to Contemporary History
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Author | Gordon A. Craig |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700211 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEws
163
NEVILLE
CHAMBERLAIN.
By
lain
MacLeod.
1961.
(London:
Frederick
Muller,
Toronto:
S.
J.
Reginald Saunders.
319pp.
$6.25.)
ALL
SOULS
AND
APPEASEMENT:
A
Contribution
to
Contemporary
History.
By
A.
L.
Rowse.
1961.
(London:
Toronto:
Macmillan
Co.
vii,
122
pp.
$3.75.)
In
the
preface
to
this
new
biography,
lain
Macleod
tells
us
that
he
never knew
or
even
saw
Neville
Chamberlain,
and
he
goes on
to
confess
that,
not
only
did
he
play
no
part
in
the
politics
of
the
Chamberlain
period,
but
that
"I
rarely felt
myself
intellectually
or
emotionally
involved
in
the
political
issues of
the
Thirties."
There
will
be
readers
who
feel,
after
laying
his
book
down,
that
this
detachment
has
had
both
good
and
bad
results.
It
has
enabled
Mr. Macleod
to
show
us
Chamberlain's
figure
from
a
somewhat
different perspective
than
is
usual
and
to reveal
aspects
of
the
Prime
Minister's
early
career
and details about his
service
to the
Brtish
people
that
are
often
overlooked
by
his critics.
But
it
has
led
him also
to
justify
and
explain away
the
tragic
inade-
quacies
of
Chamberlain's foreign
policy
and
almost
to
intimate
at
times
that
this
part
of
his
subject's
career
is
less
important
than
it
has
been
considered.
It
is,
of
course,
high
time
that
an
attempt
was
made
to
correct
the
caricature
of
Chamberlain
that
was
accepted
after
1939,
and
even
before.
Although
frequently portrayed
by
Labour
Party
pundits and Left
intellectuals
as
a
hidebound
reactionary,
Chamberlain
was
in
truth
a
radical
social
reformer,
and
Mr.
Macleod's
able
reconstruction
of
his
work
as
Director
of
National
Service,
Minister
of
Health
and
Chancellor
of
the
Exchequer
shows
how
hard
and
ably
he
laboured,
in
his
bio-
graphers's
words,
"to
create
conditions
in
which
the
wealth
of
nations
should
enrich
life
and
not
destroy
it".
These
solid
chapters
add
sub-
stantially
to
what
Keith
Feiling's biography had
to
say about
Chamber-
lain
as
a
domestic
statesman,
and,
since
Mr.
Macleod
has
himself
served
as
Minister
of
Labour
and
Minister
of
Health,
he
speaks
of
Mr.
Chamberlain's
social
services
with
authority
and
with expert
knowledge
of
the
problems
with
which
he
dealt.
His
sections
upon
Chamberlain's
services
to his
party,
as founder
of
the
Conservative Research
Depart-
ment
and
as
Party
Chairman,
are
also
admirably
done,
as
is
the
story
of his
difficult
relations
with
Churchill and
Lloyd
George
and
of
his
growing
irritation
with Stanley
Baldwin
during
that
leader's
last
years.
One
feels impelled,
nevertheless,
to
object
to
the
biographer's
argument
that,
because
of
the
soundness
of
much
of
his
domestic
activity, Chamberlain's
story
"should
not
be
overweighted
with
Munich",
since
"Munich
and
the
months
that
followed
were
not
the
natural
ful-
fillment
of
his
life and
career
in
the
sense,
for
instance,
that
Dunkirk
and
the
months
that
followed
were
the
crown
of
Winston Churchill's".
Would
Neville
Chamberlain
himself
have agreed
with
his
biographer,
at
the
time
of
Munich
or immediately
thereafter?
When
one
remem-
bers
the
satisfaction
and pride
that
marked the
Prime
Minister's
demeanour
when
he
came
home
from
Munich, one
is
inclined
to
doubt
this.
At
that
time,
Mr.
Chamberlain's
manner
seemed
to
reflect
the
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