The Munich Agreement was a fatal mistake by Hitler

Years ago it seemed no-one was talking common sense. 

That was because I took my news from the mainstream media. 

Now thanks to the internet you can follow Jeffrey Sachs to understand what is happening and Christopher Caldwell and John Mearsheimer. My work here is almost done.

No incident ever resembles Munich 1938. In this short clip Professor Sachs points out that America has used analogies with Munich for 50 years for a series of things and, even if they were apt, which they never were, Hitler thought the Munich agreement had been a trap into which he fell. 

By disregarding his promise of no more territorial demands in Europe, when he invaded Czechia in March 1939, he exposed his hand and brought down disaster on his head.

Churchill said 'History will be kind to me because I intend to write it'. So he did and so it has been, but his view of the period between 1933 to 1939, as you would expect of the view of any politician talking about his record, is very partial and very misleading. 

It is a myth (Chamberlain as Vortigern to Churchill's King Arthur) which I learnt at 8 and it is a myth that everyone still believes. 

It's the foundational myth of the American empire, though it was not America but only Britain and France (Chamberlain  and Deladier) who, in historian Maurice Cowling's words, were 'crazy enough to go to war with Germany without having to'. 

The history of the Western world since 1945 is a meditation on the powerful legend of Munich and Hitler. 

Had Churchill died in 1939 he'd have died an eccentric failure. Had Franklin Roosevelt left office in 1939 after two terms as President of the United States he'd have been a failure too. The New Deal was a failure. Instead they have been transmuted.