Bringing together leading historians, this volume offers a vital and timely reassessment of Munich Crisis of 1938 from the point of view of the politicians, the people, and public opinion. It takes into account the profound social, cultural, and psychological effects of the crisis, hitherto neglected aspects of this clash between democracy and dictatorship.

IntroductionJulie V. Gottlieb, Daniel Hucker and Richard Toye1 Czechoslovakia, Czecho-Slovakia and the Munich AgreementMary Heimann2 A very long shadow: The Munich Agreement in post-war Czechoslovak communist propaganda, ideology and historiography, 1948-1989Jakub Drábik3 ‘Curs Yapping Round the Dying Stag’, or the rituals of fractured societies: Hungary and Poland in the vortex of the Munich Crisis of 1938Miklos Lojko4 ‘What, No Chair for Me?’ Russia’s conspicuous absence from the Munich ConferenceGabriel Gorodetsky5 Churchill, Munich, and the origins of the Grand AllianceRichard Toye6 Munich and the unexpected rise of American powerAndrew Preston7 Mussolini, Munich, and the Italian peopleChristian Goeschel8 ‘England is pro-Hitler’: German popular opinion during the Czechoslovakian Crisis, 1938Karina Urbach9 Munich and the masses: emotional inflammation, mental health and shame in Britain during the September crisisJulie V. Gottlieb10 Melanie Klein and the coming of World War Two: a clinical archive, 1938Michal Shapira11 The poet’s perspective on the Munich Crisis: ‘news that STAYS news’?Helen Goethals12 Public opinion, policymakers, and the Munich Crisis: adding emotion to international historyDaniel Hucker13 France in the ‘blue light’ of Munich: popular agency, activity, and the reframing of historyJessica WardhaughBibliographyIndex

The Munich Crisis of 1938 was the climax of the deepening diplomatic and political crisis of the post-war years. The effects of the crisis and the feelings aroused by the promise of a prolonged period of European peace were widespread across borders, regions, classes and generations. It was, in fact, a People’s Crisis. It dominated the thoughts and feelings not only of those who held power but also of those who had none. Immediately after the signing of the Four Power Agreement at Munich, the dominant feelings in Britain and France were those of relief, deliverance, and gratitude to the peacemakers, mixed in with shame and guilt at the betrayal of worthy allies. The turbulent events of September 1938 aroused substantial public excitement, yet the ‘public’, the ‘people’, the ‘material’, and the ‘popular’ have hitherto been marginalised within the scholarship. This collection provides a corrective to the longstanding tendency to consider the Munich crisis almost exclusively from the viewpoint of politicians and diplomats. It considers a range of national contexts: Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Britain, Hungary, the USA and the Soviet Union. The Munich Crisis, politics and the people illuminates the crisis from the vantage points of the social, the cultural, the material, the emotional, and public opinion, offering an alternative and more inclusive narrative of the last, precarious months of peace.

'This collection comes strongly recommended not just to those with a particular interest in the Munich Crisis and the Appeasement process of the 1930s but also to those more widely engaged with the history of popular opinion in a mass media age, the history of emotions, and comparative international history.'Journal of British Studies, Volume 62, Issue 2 (April 2023)