Volume 4, Number 10 · June 17, 1965
Out of Eden
By Geoffrey Barraclough
The Reckoning
by Anthony Eden
Houghton Mifflin, 716 pp., $8.50
Considering the prominent position he held from 1940 to 1945, Anthony Eden's war memoirs are curiously unexciting. Of course, so much has been written on Anglo-American-Soviet relations and the 'Big Three' that it would have been enrealistic to expect startling disclosures at this late stage. Even so, much in this volume of 700 pages is small, and sometimes rather flat, beer. Its interest lies mainly in what—unconsciously rather than deliberately—it allows us to see of the undercurrents that muddied the wartime waters. It tells us much of Eden himself, and his limitations as a person and as a Foreign Secretary; it tells us a great deal about Churchill and a little about Stalin and Roosevelt; and it casts an oblique light on what for most people is the outstanding feature of the diplomacy of the period—the genesis of the 'cold war.'
Review, 1476 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |