Cabinet's Finest Hour

The Hidden Agenda of May 1940

David Owen (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

304 Seiten

2016
Haus Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-910376-55-3 (ISBN)

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Using the Cabinet papers from the National Archives, former Foreign Secretary David Owen has written a new history of the pivotal British War Cabinet meetings of May 1940.

In May 1940, the British War Cabinet debated over the course of nine meetings a simple question: Should Britain fight on in the face of overwhelming odds, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, or seek a negotiated peace? Using Cabinet papers from the United Kingdom s National Archives, David Owen illuminates in fascinating detail this little-known, yet pivotal, chapter in the history of World War II. Eight months into the war, defeat seemed to many a certainty. With the United States still a year and half away from entering, Britain found itself in a perilous position, and foreign secretary Lord Halifax pushed prime minister Winston Churchill to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Hitler, using Mussolini as a conduit. "Speaking for England" is the story of Churchill s triumph in the face of this pressure, but it is also about how collective debate and discussion won the day had Churchill been alone, Owen argues, he would almost certainly have lost to Halifax, changing the course of history.Instead, the Cabinet system, all too often disparaged as messy and cumbersome, worked in Britain s interests and ensured that a democracy on the brink of defeat had the courage to fight on.
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David Owen has served as a member of Parliament, minister for the Navy, health minister, and foreign secretary. He is now an Independent Social Democrat in the House of Lords. His books include "The Hidden Perspective: The Military Conversations 1906 1914."

Acknowledgements // vii

Preface // ix

1. Speak for England // 1

2. In the Name of God, Go! // 37

3. The Politics of the Coalition Government // 94

4. The Hidden Agenda // 152

Minutes and Documents // 154

Diaries // 228

5. Speaking for All of Us // 236

6. Dunkirk and Defiance // 264

7. Epilogue: Prime Minister to President - conflict and the post-war Cabinets // 285

Index // 311

Erscheinungsdatum	14.10.2016
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
ISBN-10	1-910376-55-8 / 1910376558
ISBN-13	978-1-910376-55-3 / 9781910376553
Zustand	Neuware