Was Neville Chamberlain merely naive, a man of peace who was blind to Hitler s warlike intentions in the late 1930s? Or did he, with the backing of much of Britain s ruling elite, positively prefer Nazism to the threat of Communism in a politically charged era? Alvin Finkel and Clement Leibovitz forcefully maintain the latter view. They present irrefutable evidence that in 1938 Chamberlain s government, supported by powerful business interests and an influential segment of the press, sought an agreement with the Nazis that would protect the west against attack while positively encouraging German expansion in central and eastern Europe. Attempts to conclude a pact among Britain, France, Germany and Italy were not, in fact, abandoned until Churchill s ascension to power in May of 1940. "The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion" is a bold and scrupulously documented reexamination of a vital period in European history, one that definitively overturns much received wisdom. AUTHOR: Alvin Finkel is a professor of history at Athabasca University. He is the author of Business and Social Reform in the Thirties, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, and A History of Canadian Peoples. REVIEWS: "Finkel and Leibovitz have come up with a new and more satisfactory explanation of why the Second World War broke out when it did." ? Telegraph Journal
