Britain soviet collapse versailles

Keith Neilson0521857139, 9780521857130, 9780511147012

A major re-interpretation of international relations in the period from 1919 to 1939. Avoiding such simplistic explanations as appeasement and British decline, Keith Neilson demonstrates that the underlying cause of the Second World War was the intellectual failure to find an effective means of maintaining the new world order created in 1919. With secret diplomacy, alliances and the balance of power seen as having caused the First World War, the makers of British policy after 1919 were forced to rely on such instruments of liberal internationalism as arms control, the League of Nations and global public opinion to preserve peace. Using Britain’s relations with Soviet Russia as a focus for a re-examination of Britain’s dealings with Germany and Japan, this book shows that these tools were inadequate to deal with the physical and ideological threats posed by Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism and Japanese militarism.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 7
Acknowledgements……Page 8
Abbreviations……Page 10
Introduction……Page 13
1 The period of persuasion: British strategic foreign policy and Soviet Russia, 1919–1933……Page 55
2 1933–1934: parallel interests?……Page 100
3 A clash of sensibilities: January to June 1935……Page 132
4 Complications and choices: July 1935–February 1936……Page 156
5 Soviet Russian assertiveness: February 1936–July 1937……Page 178
6 Chamberlain’s interlude: May 1937–September 1938……Page 224
7 Chamberlain as Buridan’s ass: October 1938–September 1939……Page 266
Conclusion……Page 330
Appendix I……Page 346
Appendix II……Page 347
Appendix III……Page 348
Foreign Office……Page 352
2. PRIVATE PAPERS……Page 353
I. MEMOIR MATERIAL AND BIOGRAPHIES……Page 354
2..BOOKS……Page 357
3. ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS IN BOOKS……Page 366
4. UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL AND THESES……Page 385
Index……Page 386