The End Is Nigh

Robert Crowcroft is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. Educated at the University of Leeds, he has published widely in British political history and has particular interests in leadership, the character of democratic politics, and the Second World War. His first book, Attlee's War: World War II and the Making of a Labour Leader (I.B. Tauris, 2011), was named one of the best books of 2011 in Total Politics magazine. His recent publications (as co-editor) include The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000 (OUP, 2018) and the latest edition of the popular reference book The Oxford Companion to British History (OUP, 2015).

Few decades have given rise to such potent mythologies as the 1930s. Popular impressions of those years prior to the Second World War were shaped by the single outstanding personality of that conflict, Winston Spencer Churchill. Churchill depicted himself as a political prophet, exiled into the wilderness prior to 1939 by those who did not want to hear of the growing threats to peace in Europe. Although it is a familiar story, it is one we need to unlearn as the truth is somewhat murkier.

The End is Nigh is a tale of relentless intrigue, burning ambition, and the bitter rivalry in British politics during the years preceding the Second World War. Journeying from the corridors of Whitehall to the smoking rooms of Parliament, and from aircraft factories to summit meetings with Hitler, the book offers a fresh and provocative interpretation of one of the most crucial moments of British history. It assembles a cast of iconic characters--Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Ernest Bevin, and more--to explore the dangerous interaction between high politics at Westminster and the formulation of national strategy in a world primed to explode.

In the twenty-first century we are accustomed to being cynical about politicians, mistrusting what they say and wondering about their real motives, but Robert Crowcroft argues that this was always the character of democratic politics. In The End is Nigh he challenges some of the most resilient public myths of recent decades--myths that, even now, remain an important component of Britain's self-image.

The tale of the relentless intrigue, burning ambition, and bitter rivalry in British politics during the years preceding the Second World War, exploring the interaction between Westminster and a world primed to explode.