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The End Is Nigh: British Politics, Power, and the Road to the Second World War
Few decades have given rise to such potent mythologies as the 1930s. Popular impressions of those years prior to the Second World War were shaped by the single outstanding personality of that conflict, Winston Spencer Churchill. Churchill depicted himself as a political prophet, exiled into the wilderness prior to 1939 by those who did not want to hear of the growing threats to peace in Europe. Although it is a familiar story, it is one we need to unlearn as the truth is somewhat murkier.
The End is Nigh is a tale of relentless intrigue, burning ambition, and the bitter rivalry in British politics during the years preceding the Second World War. Journeying from the corridors of Whitehall to the smoking rooms of Parliament, and from aircraft factories to summit meetings with Hitler, the book offers a fresh and provocative interpretation of one of the most crucial moments of British history. It assembles a cast of iconic characters--Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Ernest Bevin, and more--to explore the dangerous interaction between high politics at Westminster and the formulation of national strategy in a world primed to explode.
In the twenty-first century we are accustomed to being cynical about politicians, mistrusting what they say and wondering about their real motives, but Robert Crowcroft argues that this was always the character of democratic politics. In The End is Nigh he challenges some of the most resilient public myths of recent decades--myths that, even now, remain an important component of Britain's self-image.
The End is Nigh is a tale of relentless intrigue, burning ambition, and the bitter rivalry in British politics during the years preceding the Second World War. Journeying from the corridors of Whitehall to the smoking rooms of Parliament, and from aircraft factories to summit meetings with Hitler, the book offers a fresh and provocative interpretation of one of the most crucial moments of British history. It assembles a cast of iconic characters--Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Ernest Bevin, and more--to explore the dangerous interaction between high politics at Westminster and the formulation of national strategy in a world primed to explode.
In the twenty-first century we are accustomed to being cynical about politicians, mistrusting what they say and wondering about their real motives, but Robert Crowcroft argues that this was always the character of democratic politics. In The End is Nigh he challenges some of the most resilient public myths of recent decades--myths that, even now, remain an important component of Britain's self-image.
284 pages, Hardcover
First published July 23, 2019
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50 people want to read
About the author
Robert Crowcroft
7 books3 followersRobert Crowcroft is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. Educated at the University of Leeds, he has published widely in British political history and has particular interests in leadership, the character of democratic politics, and the Second World War.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 17, 2023
The politics that led Britain to war (WW2) according to the author was driven by self-importance and personal advancement. These traits he applies across the board and across the isle: politicos put themselves and their party before the country.
I’m no expert and can be no judge. I believe that is a truth of today’s political class; but back then when the end was nigh?
I’ll need to read more .. for now I’ll reserve judgement.
I’m no expert and can be no judge. I believe that is a truth of today’s political class; but back then when the end was nigh?
I’ll need to read more .. for now I’ll reserve judgement.
January 24, 2020
The theme of “The End is Nigh” by Robert Crowcroft might be summed up in the aphorism that ‘history is written by the victors.’
“Few understood that better than Winston Churchill,” writes Crowcroft in this stunning history, who depicts Churchill as making quite sure he was to be at the center of events during the historic crossroads of Europe in the 1930s. “He was equally determined that the version of the 1930s that people remembered, the one passed down to future generations, was that which he himself would write. And so he did.”
Crowcroft acknowledges Churchill’s “The Gathering Storm” as “one of the great works of twentieth century literature” that built the unassailable myth of Winston Churchill as the savior of civilization, obscuring that Churchill’s actions led directly to the loss of the Empire and Great Britain’s preeminent place as a world power. “The Second World War destroyed Britain’s world power. . . . Nothing was ever the same again” Crowcroft writes. He explains that in the decades following the war the public embraced “national myths . . . that partly explained” what had happened to Great Britain and that were meant to make “the British feel better about what was, in reality, an utter catastrophe.” Crowcroft calls these vital myths “a cultural anaesthetic.”
“The End is Nigh” primarily deals with the struggle for power in Whitehall, and that the government’s actions on foreign affairs in the 1930s were as much a domestic concern politically as they were a concern of foreign policy. I gained a much better understanding from this book of Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain’s predecessor as prime minister, and how he appealed to the British and their cherished view of themselves as reasonable and decent and not being prone to the political radicalism that was so prevalent on the continent. Baldwin, unlike Chamberlain, was able to build political coalitions with his enemies, whereas Chamberlain could not hide is disdain for his political rivals.
Great Britain had always seen itself, Crowcroft writes, as “an island state and maritime empire” that was removed from the land-locked countries of Europe and the disputes that result over common borders. The British people saw themselves, with not a little pride, as a small, isolated, but mighty nation. “Yet in the 1930s,” Crowcroft maintains, “Britain failed to exploit the advantages of being an ‘outside’ power, not an ‘inside’ state.”
In entering agreements that tied her to the actions of other European countries, Great Britain failed to see things through the eyes of a “British imperialist; and Britain was, first and foremost, an imperial, global power.” English leaders in the 1930s failed miserably in putting Great Britain’s interests first.
Crowcroft notes that there is an “Authorized Version” of Britain’s national history, that he says is “instantly familiar to the British people, but will also be recognizable to international readers, for it is an indispensable component of the self-image that Britain has projected to the wider world. . . . Even in the twenty-first century, Churchill still tops popular polls to identify the greatest Briton of all time.” And one can only note that a bust of Churchill was promptly restored to the Oval Office of the White House by President Trump when he took office, restoring it to the prominent place it enjoyed during the presidency of George W. Bush – two leaders, it could be argued, that also failed in putting the interests of their own nation first and foremost.
“Few understood that better than Winston Churchill,” writes Crowcroft in this stunning history, who depicts Churchill as making quite sure he was to be at the center of events during the historic crossroads of Europe in the 1930s. “He was equally determined that the version of the 1930s that people remembered, the one passed down to future generations, was that which he himself would write. And so he did.”
Crowcroft acknowledges Churchill’s “The Gathering Storm” as “one of the great works of twentieth century literature” that built the unassailable myth of Winston Churchill as the savior of civilization, obscuring that Churchill’s actions led directly to the loss of the Empire and Great Britain’s preeminent place as a world power. “The Second World War destroyed Britain’s world power. . . . Nothing was ever the same again” Crowcroft writes. He explains that in the decades following the war the public embraced “national myths . . . that partly explained” what had happened to Great Britain and that were meant to make “the British feel better about what was, in reality, an utter catastrophe.” Crowcroft calls these vital myths “a cultural anaesthetic.”
“The End is Nigh” primarily deals with the struggle for power in Whitehall, and that the government’s actions on foreign affairs in the 1930s were as much a domestic concern politically as they were a concern of foreign policy. I gained a much better understanding from this book of Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain’s predecessor as prime minister, and how he appealed to the British and their cherished view of themselves as reasonable and decent and not being prone to the political radicalism that was so prevalent on the continent. Baldwin, unlike Chamberlain, was able to build political coalitions with his enemies, whereas Chamberlain could not hide is disdain for his political rivals.
Great Britain had always seen itself, Crowcroft writes, as “an island state and maritime empire” that was removed from the land-locked countries of Europe and the disputes that result over common borders. The British people saw themselves, with not a little pride, as a small, isolated, but mighty nation. “Yet in the 1930s,” Crowcroft maintains, “Britain failed to exploit the advantages of being an ‘outside’ power, not an ‘inside’ state.”
In entering agreements that tied her to the actions of other European countries, Great Britain failed to see things through the eyes of a “British imperialist; and Britain was, first and foremost, an imperial, global power.” English leaders in the 1930s failed miserably in putting Great Britain’s interests first.
Crowcroft notes that there is an “Authorized Version” of Britain’s national history, that he says is “instantly familiar to the British people, but will also be recognizable to international readers, for it is an indispensable component of the self-image that Britain has projected to the wider world. . . . Even in the twenty-first century, Churchill still tops popular polls to identify the greatest Briton of all time.” And one can only note that a bust of Churchill was promptly restored to the Oval Office of the White House by President Trump when he took office, restoring it to the prominent place it enjoyed during the presidency of George W. Bush – two leaders, it could be argued, that also failed in putting the interests of their own nation first and foremost.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews