Tim Bouverie interview - Tiffin History Society - William Milne, Tiffin School

During a much needed trip to Mcdonalds not long ago I had a cheeky peek at my emails, and to my surprise, Bouverie had accepted my invitation to speak at the Tiffin History Society (which I co-lead). The thought of enjoying my food escaped from my consciousness, and I spent the following weeks anticipating what I knew would be a highlight of my time at Sixth Form - and an opportunity for the History Society members to benefit from the thinking of a bestselling historian.

Described by none other than Max Hastings as 'one of the most promising young historians to enter our field for years', Tim Bouverie has already established himself as a first-rate historian. Starting his history career as an undergraduate at Oxford University, he put history on hold from 2013-2017 when he was a political journalist for Channel 4, a turbulent time in British politics in which he covered two General Elections and the EU  referendum. Subsequently he published two bestselling books ('Appeasing Hitler' in 2019 - which narrates the British policy of appeasement in the run-up to WW2 - and 'Perfect Pitch' - in which Bouverie provides a playlist of 100 pieces of classical music with the accompanying stories of each).

Although technologically ‘adequate’, I am far from ‘advanced’, meaning initially a loud echo would ring out through the room where history society was running. But soon enough everything was going smoothly.

Reading a lot of popular history, I am aware that the author has the power to select quotes and evidence as they wish, and therefore unfairly manipulate history in favour of a certain theory. Popular historians like Bouverie undoubtedly are conscious of the challenge to select a good balance of quotes, so I asked him how he chooses the evidence he uses. Bouverie used the example of the diaries of politicians such as Chips Channon that are so central to his book on Appeasement. He accepted that of course, ‘diaries are a hugely subjective source’ hence why if you read Chips Channon’s diaries ‘you would come away thinking that Chamberlain was the greatest orator since Demosthenes and… Churchill is a hopeless speaker’. Bouverie goes on to mention E.H.Carr’s theory that to study history you must study the historian - essentially by establishing the ‘slant’ a writer has, you can view the writing more fairly. That is what every historian must do. You cannot isolate an opinion from the one who made it. This is how the historian can use evidence and quotes more fairly.

After talking about the prevalence of fascism in inter-war British society, the worryingly low general knowledge of Hitler’s ideology in Mein Kampf, we talked about the theory that appeasement was a masterful strategy that Chamberlain used to rearm Britain to a sufficient level before going to war. Bouverie labels this ‘a very successful myth that was propagated by the appeasers as soon as the Second World War broke out’. He suggests it is ‘ahistorical’ since Chamberlain never, even in private correspondence, suggested he was trying to delay war in order to rearm, instead it was to evade war entirely. Furthermore, ‘a year of rearmament in Britain is also a year of rearmament in Germany, and if you look at the figures… you can see that the Germans outarmed the British and the French’. 

The policy of appeasement has been invoked by British and American governments to justify actions numerous times (e.g. in Iraq). It’s as if the subject is revived as the years go by (rightly or wrongly). With the recent Russia-Ukraine Crisis, the subject has certainly been revived. Is it fair to make comparisons between Hitler’s threatenings and annexations and Putin’s own attitude to Ukraine? Bouverie responds by saying ‘I don’t think that Putin has the same ambition as Hitler, I don’t think he wants to dominate the whole of Europe,’ instead wanting to establish power like the Tsars and then the USSR. Bouverie does not believe Putin’s ambitions are as great as Hitler. As ruthless as he is, we must understand the ideological distinctions between the two powers - however ruthless Putin may be.

After a long discussion, I opened the floor to questions from my fellow history enthusiasts. Here we asked about how Bouverie’s career in journalism has impacted his work as a historian, whether music influences history (Bouverie says it doesn’t influence it massively, but that he wish it did!) and the question of whether we should give so daming assessments of figures in history who, though immoral by present standards, were ‘of their time’ (and Bouverie responded with the example of Churchill, a man he believes was undoubtedly racist, although he reminded us that we should acknowledge that most people were racist in this time - we should treat it with justified horror, but should not single Churchill out as an ‘anomaly’).

After 40 minutes benefitting from the rich knowledge of Tim Bouverie, the session drew to a close. Like most people, I’m not typically around bestselling authors, so it was one of the most refreshing and enriching conversations I had ever had. It really was admirable that someone who was so dedicated to their subject, and so rightly successful as a result, was generous enough to take a break from writing his new book on World War Two alliances and sacrifice 40 minutes of his day to speak to us. Tiffin History Society is not complicated. It is based on the simple idea of a presenter just talking and talking about history. So we were really grateful to have such a prominent external guest talk about subjects that he knows so well and enjoys speaking about. I look forward to seeing Bouverie’s future projects, which I am sure will meet with massive success.

Check out Tim Bouverie’s books:

‘Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War’

‘Perfect Pitch: 100 pieces of classical music to bring joy, tears, solace, empathy, inspiration (& everything in between)’