Why am I passionate about this?

The Second World War featured prominently in comics and conversations with adults when I was a boy. Knowing about the war and its origins was a way to make sense of the world. As an undergraduate, my history professor insisted I also study economics. That has helped my study of strategy, which is also concerned with choices between alternative uses of scarce resources. However, dry analysis is not enough for a historian. It mattered that Churchill and Chamberlain had different personalities. I try to recapture the political passions of the past and the uncertainty people felt then about the future.


I wrote

Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement

By G. C. Peden,

Book cover of Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement

What is my book about?

Churchill claimed war could easily have been prevented if Britain had rearmed more quickly and had allied with other European…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Gathering Storm

G. C. Peden Why did I love this book?

I first read this book half a century ago and still enjoy rereading it. Churchill’s style is modeled on the great historians of the 18th and 19th centuries. He argues with conviction and clarity that war could have been prevented.

However, I find myself echoing a 19th century prime minister who said of the historian Macaulay: ‘I wish I were as sure of anything in this world as [he] is of everything.’

By Winston S. Churchill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Gathering Storm as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the Second World War.


Book cover of In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War

G. C. Peden Why did I love this book?

Churchill famously said that history would judge that he was right, and he would write the history. I admire David’s forensic approach to Churchill’s use of omissions and careful phrasing in this book to lend plausibility to counterfactuals regarding how Hitler could have been stopped. A masterpiece of historiography that enabled me to read Churchill’s work with new eyes.

By David Reynolds,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked In Command of History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winston Churchill fought the World War II twice over-first as Prime Minister during the war, and then later as the war's premier historian. From 1948-54, he published six volumes of memoirs. They secured his reputation and shaped our understanding of the conflict to this day. Drawing on the drafts of Churchill's manuscript as well as his correspondence from the period, David Reynolds masterfully reveals Churchill the author. Reynolds shows how the memoirs were censored by the British government to conceal state secrets, and how Churchill himself censored them to avoid offending current world leaders. This book illuminates an unjustly neglected…


Book cover of Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War

G. C. Peden Why did I love this book?

I attended Alistair Parker’s lectures as a postgraduate in Oxford, and I could hear his voice engaging with his audience when I read this book. Alistair rejected Churchill’s portrait of Chamberlain as narrow-minded and lacking experience in European affairs and accepted that the prime minister’s options were limited by economic and strategic circumstances. However, he argued with characteristic verve that Chamberlain’s obstinacy in pursuing appeasement, caution in rearmament, and opposition to a Soviet alliance dispelled any chance of deterring Hitler.

By R. A. C. Parker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Chamberlain and Appeasement as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book provides a fresh and original approach to a controversial episode in British history, Chamberlain's policy of 'appeasement' towards Hitler's Germany. Written directly from primary archival sources, Alastair Parker's account offers the student new perspectives on the man who dominated the making of British policy before and after his 'triumph' at Munich in September 1938 - Neville Chamberlain. This study considers his personality, his aims and his methods and the opposition to him from men both within and outside his party.


Book cover of Grand Strategy Volume I: Rearmament Policy

G. C. Peden Why did I love this book?

Norman Gibbs supervised my doctoral thesis at Oxford and kindly lent me the proofs of his book before its publication in the series of official histories of the Second World War. I have often had to consult it since and have never failed to find something relevant to what I want to know about British defense policy, often in the form of a quotation from a key document.

By N. H. Gibbs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Grand Strategy Volume I as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Pages 892. Reprinted in 2016 with the help of original edition published long back. This book is in black & white, Hardcover, sewing binding for longer life with Matt laminated multi-Colour Dust Cover, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, there may be some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want…


Book cover of Cry Havoc: How the Arms Race Drove the World to War, 1931-1941

G. C. Peden Why did I love this book?

British policy can only be fully understood in the context of what other powers were doing, and Joe Maiolo’s comprehensive study of the arms race is the best place to start. I have admired his work since I examined his doctoral thesis, but in this book, based on sources in five languages, he takes the international history of the period to a new level.

By Joseph Maiolo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cry Havoc as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Did the arms race of the 1930s cause the Second World War? In Cry Havoc , historian Joseph Maiolo shows, in rich and fascinating detail, how the deadly game of the arms race was played out in the decade prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. In this exhaustively researched account, he explores how nations reacted to the moves of their rivals, revealing the thinking of those making the key decisions,Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, Stalin, Roosevelt,and the dilemmas of democratic leaders who seemed to be faced with a choice between defending their nations and preserving their democratic way of…


Explore my book 😀

Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement

By G. C. Peden,

Book cover of Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement

What is my book about?

Churchill claimed war could easily have been prevented if Britain had rearmed more quickly and had allied with other European powers. He thought Chamberlain’s attempt to appease Hitler at Munich in 1938 fatally altered the balance of power in Germany’s favor. Yet it was Chamberlain who declared war in 1939, and aircraft his government had ordered won the Battle of Britain.

I reassess Churchill’s claims and Chamberlain’s actions in light of Britain’s armed power and diplomatic options, emphasizing the uncertainty facing statesmen. I explain why historians disagree about what would have happened if defense and foreign policy had been different.

Book cover of The Gathering Storm
Book cover of In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War
Book cover of Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War

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