A fresh, lively, but controversial account of Neville Chamberlain's personality, this book considers Chamberlain in light of British policy before World War II. Well-liked and admired by his close associates, Chamberlain worked hard, intelligently, and perceptively. Yet he arguably helped to bring Britain to the edge of disaster. Chamberlain persisted in negotiating with the Third Reich long after most other observers thought his policy had failed. He always had good reasons for his reactions. But the appeasement policy was, in fact, one of the most ambitious ever pursued by a British statesman in an attempt to remodel Europe to fit British interests. In his book Parker suggests there were alternatives to Chamberlain's policy and that these alternatives might have prevented the onset of war. Using archival documents which have only lately become available to scholars, Parker analyses the policy of appeasement and the events that led up to the Second World War.