Political Science Arms Control
Covenants Without The Sword
Public Opinion and British Defence Policy 1931-1935
- Publisher
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
- Initial publish date
- Mar 1983
- Category
- Arms Control, Weapons, Great Britain
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780889207387
- Publish Date
- Mar 1983
- List Price
- $32.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781554585137
- Publish Date
- Mar 1983
- List Price
- $34.99
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Description
This book constitutes a major and comprehensive reevaluation of British defence policy in the early 1930s.The author traces the evolution of British opinion toward rearmament, from opposition to approval, between 1931 and 1935 and assesses the impact of this opinion on the formation of the Government's defence policy. He places public opinion among the many factors which determined the extent and timing of British rearmament during this period and concludes that the leaders of those Governments were not "Guilty Men" who let political considerations overrule their responsibility for national security, but rather prudent men who decided on rearmament before it was publicly acceptable.
Documented from such sources as newspaper editorials, cabinet papers, speeches of Members of Parliament, and results of by-elections, the book will be of interest to historians, students of policy decisions and public opinion, and persons interested in the events leading to World War II.
About the author
Patrick Kyba, Associate Professor of Political Studies at the University of Guelph, holds the Ph.D. degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has published in the areas of international environmental management and Canadian federal and provincial politics and is currently preparing a biography of Alvin Hamilton, former leader of the Progressive Conservative party of Saskatchewan and sometime minister in the Diefenbaker governments.