The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s Book

Piers Brendon is Britain's keeper of the Churchill Archives. This is hardly his first work. In addition to the expected Churchill biography, he's also written a couple of books on the Windsors, wrote the well-received "Emminent Edwardians" and even a biography on Ike. But for majesterial scope, its hard to imagine any book better than this.

Brendon calls his work a "panorama" of the 1930s and indeed it is. Like most of you who might check out this blog, I know something about the 30s. Munich, the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese military junta, Chamberlain, Soviet purges. You would be hard pressed to come up with a name of an event that was unfamiliar. But what is magical about this work is the way Brendon is able to weave the many threads of significant history into a single, coherent tapestry. Everything is inter-related. From Haile Selassie -- to the Depression -- to the Popular Front in France. Each of the events interplays with the other.

It is also a book with a real point of view, and one I found persuasive. Brendon takes neo-imperialist historians like Niall Ferguson to task. He won't accept that appeasement of Germany was the correct call, or that it did not contribute to World War. He Marshall's his facts pretty convincingly. There can be no doubt that Chamberlin's efforts to divert Hitler to the East alienated both Mussolini and Stalin from the west. It also weakened the hands of those in the military determined to rid the country of the little corporal. Whether or not Hitler's maddness would have inevitably led to conflict with the West is academic from his point of view. Hitler facing a fortified Czech frontier and the Red Army in 1938, is a Hitler defeated in 1939.

That is not to say that Brendon is totally unsympathetic to the dilemma of the democracies. He seems to have real empathy for France's situation. Buffeted brutally by the depression, France was being torn both left and right. Furthermore, having been literally bled dry in the last war, France's reluctance to fight again seems understandable.

But Brendon is a bit tougher on the home country. He notes that Britain was not as devastated by the Depression as the other leading powers. While there was unrest and even mutiny in the Royal Navy, none of it compared with circumstance of Germany, France or the Soviet Union. He highlights the desperate game of appeasement also played with the Japanese in vain hopes of holding on to the remnanents of empire in the East. In short, Brendon paints a pretty compelling picture of "perfidious albion." Its a picture with painful flourishes of dishonor, desperation and a touch of duplicity.

It should not be assumed that this is some sort of backhanded defense of Churchill. It is not. He seems fully aware of the great man's warts. Furthermore, given the period, Churchill is not exactly center stage. But he does reinforce a narrative that makes Churchill the right man at the right time.

Interestingly, the United States plays a relatively small part in the book. It is hightlighted initially as the first domino in the world wide depression. But then, as is appropriate, it tends only to interject herself on the margins of the narrative. Two players that sometimes get the short shrift though -- Italy and Japan are center stage. Exploring the machinations of these powers in all of the great events of the time, makes for a much richer story.

So Mr. Brendon has really left me with a panoramic view of the era. I see the full, broad picture now -- where I once only had snap shots. The 30s should be of interest to any student of history, and as a result, so should this book.