Uncertain Lessons of Appeasement

When statesmen face world crises, they often tell us that their decisions are based on information the rest of us lack. Crises pass, archives close, and sometimes we forget to look back to count the change from the bill that has been paid. Telford Taylor, who teaches at the Columbia and Benjamin Cardozo law schools, has taken advantage of reopened archives to examine what passed for currency during the Munich crisis of 1938. Delving into the papers of the British cabinet, military staff documents, and a wealth of diaries, Taylor has recreated in remarkable detail the political and diplomatic events leading up to war in Europe. He tells us what the leaders knew, when they knew it, and, most interesting, what they could have known had they...