Appeasement: Before and After Revisionism

Few of the enduring ‘lessons of history' have had greater staying power than the legacy of appeasement. Decision-makers have used the crises of the 1930s to eschew and condemn appeasement. However, historians have not been so single minded in their analyses or applications. An historiographical survey of ‘appeasement studies’ then posits that a linear projection from orthodoxy, to revisionism, to counter- or post-revisionism’ is not accurate. As to why recourse to the appeasement analogy is so prevalent is linked to the engagement, or lack thereof, between historians and public history and the decision-making process.