Drawing on diaries, memoirs, press reports, speeches, Cabinet papers and interviews with participants, this book gives a detailed account of the personal and political struggles of the appeasement years in Britain, focusing on the social and political division of the country over the question of how to respond to Hitler's challenge. The reader is taken into the House of Commons, Downing Street, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, the BBC, Fleet Street, Transport House, the TUC, embassies, clubs and private houses to be given an overview of what Harold Nicolson described as one of the most disastrous episodes in our history. A former Parliamentary lobby correspondent, Robert Shepherd has worked in the Conversative Research Department and produced Channel 4's A Week in Politics.