Interpretations - History - OCR A GCSE

• Approval of Chamberlain’s actions

• Kept spectre of war at bay for as long as he could

• british people were scared of another war like WWI

• Interpretation didn’t last long - people felt guilty about Czecheslovakia

• there were powerful critics e.g. Churchill

1937-8 (before the war)

• Appeasement was foolish, cowardly, immoral

• book ‘guilty men’ published by CATO - main argument was that Britain giving in to dictators just strengthened them

• Many people felt ashamed of what happened

1939-48 (during the war and just after)

• Appeasement was a terrible misjudgement even if it was based on good motives

• Churchill argued this in his book ‘the gathering storm’ - published after WWII

  • he claimed that Chamberlain should have made a grand alliance with France, USA and USSR

• This view became very accepted as Churchill lead Britain through the war

1948-60s (after the war)

• Chamberlain was in an impossible position - he did the best he could at the time

• Historian A.J.P Taylor argued, in 1961, that Hitler did not have a clear plan in the 1930s

  • Chamberlain could not be blamed for not knowing

• Donald Watt (historian), 1965, argued that Hitler was just one of Chamberlain’s problems and he had little resources

• New British sources available

• This view did not have a big impact on politicians nor the public

1960s-90s (a time of radical thinking)

• Chamberlains own personality and assumptions meant he handled the situation badly

• Robert Parker = first historian to introduce view

  • Chamberlain overrate his own abilities

  • Chamebrlain completely failed to understand Hitler

  • Chamberlain ignored advice of officials

  • Chamberlain betrayed Czecheslovakia

• Many historains didn’t agree, didn’t have a big impact on wider public either

• New Soviet sources

• Donald Watt, 1991 change his view to this one

1990s-2000s

• the Cold war was caused by aggressive expansion by Soviet leaders who wanted to spread communism everywhere

• Thomas Bailey, historian, argued that the USSR wanted world revolution - their actions in Eastern Europe were what caused it

• The ‘red scare’: there were fears of communist agents operating in the US

• Many orthodox historians were previously part of the government

• This view was widely accepted among most americans

1940s-60s - during

• the Cold war was caused by the aggressive actions of the USA + its determination to dominate trade in Europe and Asia

• Orthodox historians overstated soviet threat

  • Cuban revolution - USA behaved like an empire-building power

  • Vietnam war - US supported a corrupt regime - killing innocent civilians '

• A strong youth culture supported the view - Politicans were less accepting

1960s-70s - still during

• The cold war was caused by the way either side reacted to eachothers actions

  • largely based on misunderstanding and mistrust

• John Lweis Gaddis = leading post-revisionist historian

  • mixed ideas of both 1st and 2nd interpretation

  • substantial blame on Stalin’s beliefs and actions howerver the US always overreacted

• This interpretation Influenced lots of historians - provided a more rounded view

1970s-89 (towards the end of the war)

• We still can’t be sure - access to soviet archive still left historains divided

• the ‘Reagan factor’ - in the last years of the COld war Reagan referred to USSR as ‘Evil EMpire’ - many poeple agreed howerver some thought he had still been too aggressive

• John Gaddis revised his ideas more towards orthodox - created a bug ipression among historians

1989+ (after the war)