Volume 32, Number 5 · March 28, 1985
Munich Man
By David Cannadine
Neville Chamberlain Volume I: Pioneering and Reform, 1869–1929
by David Dilks
Cambridge University Press, 645 pp., $29.95
On Neville Chamberlain's death in November 1940, Winston Churchill delivered one of his most moving, majestic, and magnanimous orations. It showed a rare sympathy for disappointed hopes and upset calculations; it appealed to conscience and to history as the only sure judges of men's deeds; and it took the broadest possible view of Chamberlain's character and achievements. At the end of a year in which he had won immortality as the savior of his country, Churchill could well afford to be generous to his vanquished contemporary, who had been, at one time or another, his colleague, then his critic, his superior, then his subordinate. And so he left a good deal unsaid, dwelling on Chamberlain's undeniable virtues, and saluting him as one whom Disraeli would have called 'an English worthy': for his dedicated pursuit of peace, for his physical and moral toughness, for his precision of mind and aptitude for business, and for his firmness of spirit and fortitude in adversity. All this, Churchill declared, would stand Chamberlain 'in good stead so far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.'
Review, 2956 words
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