The Origins of the Second World War

First published in 1961, this diplomatic history re-examines how a European war began in 1939. Taylor treats Hitler as an opportunist working within ordinary German aims rather than as the author of a unique, long-prepared timetable, and he assigns weight to the miscalculations of British, French, and other governments from Versailles through the Anschluss, Munich, and the Polish crisis. Treaties, conferences, and the collapse of collective security are the materials. The argument is that the war grew from a sequence of blunders, not from a single secret plan. The book is a revisionist study of interwar diplomacy, not a military history of the campaigns that followed.

52 monochrome plates. Red endleaves printed in black with a map. Bound black cloth, cover blocked with a red and gold pattern. Red slipcase.