European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents during the Second World War

Description

This collection provides the most comprehensive English-language survey of the conduct of neutral and non-belligerent states during the war for fifty years. The essays focus on how individual neutral governments perceived international developments and reveal the domestic political circumstances that critically affected their response to the course of the war. They therefore provide the political context that has been overlooked in recent controversies surrounding their humanitarian and financial activities, and offer analytical introductions to the large amount of historical writing unavailable in English.

Neville Wylie was Junior Research Fellow and British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at New Hall and at the Centre of International Studies in Cambridge. Since leaving Cambridge in 1998 he has held positions at the University of Glasgow, where he was acting director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies, and University College Dublin and has been a visiting lecturer at the Graduate Institute for International Affairs in Geneva. He has published a number of articles in scholarly journals and is author of a forthcoming monograph on British policy towards Switzerland, 1939-1945.

'The attention properly given to historiography increases the book's value as a complement to mainline Second World War histories ... Not only do these essays modify our understanding of neutrality, they also prompt us to rethink the Second World War itself.' Times Literary Supplement '... there is much to commend in this book ... It is a very accessible book which will give the undergraduate an understanding of how the war was seen in the varying categories of 'neutral' nations, and will help fill in some gaps for researchers working on the Second world war period.' History '... a very wide-ranging, but also a highly constructive treatment ... The editor is to be commended on bringing these essays together; without doubt the collection will be valuable to academics and students alike.' Diplomacy and Statecraft '... the book is attractively presented. There are handy short identifications of the contributors and the notes are at the bottom of the pages ...'. H-Diplo