Description: The origins of the Second World War, once regarded as a straightforward issue, have become the subject of renewed controversy. The view, common to the contemporary generation, that the war was the outcome of a co-ordinated conspiracy among the Axis powers and the moral blindness of the democratic powers in pursuing appeasement policies, ceased to find agreement among historians several decades ago. Subsequently historical interpretations were influenced by the iconoclastic work of A. J. P. Taylor, who cast doubt upon the supposed coherence and scope of Nazi ambitions, and by the works of numerous other scholars whose archival investigations led to a new appreciation of the practical arguments for appeasement.

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