Right Facts, Wrong Theme

...Right Facts, Wrong Theme_ Recessional: The British Revolution 1880-1939 By Robert Rhode James Knopf 653 pp $17 95 Reviewed by David H. Katz Assistant professor of social science, Michigan State University this superbly written and intermittently provocative historical study has already won wide acclaim in Britain Like A j P Taylor m the overlapping English History 1914-1945, Robert Rhode James displays an elegant lucidity and easy command of source materials Moreover, unlike a growing number of historians, especially on this side of the Atlantic, he has not succumbed to the siren call of "scientific" history Without neglecting the larger political and economic background, he steadfastly focuses on those political leaders—notably, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Baldwin, and Chamberlain—whose "achievements, failures and perversities contributed to substantive changes to the course of British history " His assessments of these figures are always balanced, sometimes brilliant, and do much to offset the book's one weakness its contention that developments during the period covered collectively constituted a "revolution " Fortunately, the author does not thump this theme too hard Basically a narrative historian and shrewd political analyst, he is most often content to describe and comment on events without trying to squeeze them into a prefabricated theoretical mold The Home Rule crisis, two wars (vastly unequal in magnitude but akin in their negative consequences), the General Strike, and the slide toward World War II—all these are assayed with cool professional competence and occasionally, as in the handling of the Irish Question and '30s diplomacy, with something more than that In a hundred pages of close analysis, for example, Rhode James systematically weighs the forces behind appeasement, and thoroughly deflates some of the popular misconceptions spawned by Churchill and other commentators British policy during those years is correctly interpreted as the product of a multitude of factors vastly exaggerated fear of mass bombing and German military prowess, fanciful notions about splitting the German-Italian connection and, most important, a myopic reluctance to forge a grand alliance among all antifascist powers Chamberlain ("a decent, kind, sensitive, vain, authoritarian and ruthless man") is neither excoriated nor rehabilitated, he is rightly seen as a representative exponent of the conventional unwisdom "Chamberlain was dominated by conflicting illusions The first was his Victorian assumption that Britain, as the dominant world power, could deal directly and independently with the German leaders The second was that Germany was militarily so powerful and Britain so relatively weak that everything must be done to avert a war crisis The third was that reasonable men could always find reasonable solutions to problems " Churchill comes off only slightly better Departing from the prevailing hagiography, the author demonstrates that the Great Man was hardly a heroic prophet crying in the wilderness?the role Churchill artfully wrote for himself in The Gathering Storm In fact, his opposition to fascism (like that of many upper-class Englishmen) was highly conditional An enthusiastic supporter of British imperialism, he was rather tolerant about Japanese and Italian aggression in the earlv-to-mid-'30s His objection to German expansionism, though stalwart, stemmed from pure nationalism and was thus unlikely to attract fascism's more principled opponents It would be pleasant and profitable to dwell on other such discussions in Recessional, yet ultimately one must confront the book's theme In employing the term "revolution" in the subtitle, Rhode James apparently intends to encompass a number of changes from 1880-1939 increasingly professional party organizations, educational and social reform, and the gradual democratization of political life These were, undisputably and in toto, highly significant developments But it can be argued that they were no more significant than the ones that marked the 60 preceding or succeeding years During the former period, Britain was indelibly transformed into an industrial society, during the latter, it grudgingly relinquished an empire and declined to the status of a second-rate power governed by social democrats of varying party labels Indeed, change has been continuous for the past two centuries, so that demarcating the middle era as particularly revolutionary seems arbitrary One could even argue that the designation is plain wrongheaded For as the historian himself acknowledges in a summary chapter, the pace of change slowed in the decades under discussion and problems accumulated Some issues, such as the Irish Question, were (partially) resolved by force, others, like the adjustment to the competitive challenge posed by Germany and America, were scarcely addressed Free Trade and laissez-faire, perfectly sensible doctrines in the era of Britain's undisputed economic hegemony, lingered on as sacred dogma, while millions remained unemployed The pound sterling was valiantly—and inanely—restored to its prewar value In short, these largely wasted years, when Britain continued to live off accumulated capital—both financial and intellectual—might be best described as the Age of Complacency Had Robert Rhode James made this his theme, he might have written a definitive rather than merely an excellent book...