Feb 28, 2023
This episode was first published on Dec. 13, 2022. New
episodes of History As It Happens are coming soon.
Since British prime minister Neville Chamberlain
attempted to avoid war with Hitler in 1938, the word
appeasement has been synonymous with moral weakness and
wishful thinking. While the failure to appease the Nazi dictator
offers important lessons, politicians -- and even some historians
-- often invoke the infamous Munich Conference as a political
cudgel with which to bash their foes. It happened during Vietnam,
the wars in Iraq, and it's happening again to justify Western
support for Ukraine, even though its predicament differs in
significant ways from that of Czechoslovakia in 1938. In this
episode, military historian Cathal Nolan differentiates propaganda
from history.