R. H. Bruce Lockhart (1887–1970)

It's not exactly a "must read" and of course it's written in the style of the 1930s, but none-the-less it provides a fascinating insight into the political world in the run-up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Bruce-Lockhart was already extremely well travelled in the Balkans and Eastern Europe and seems to have known anyone who was anyone in those countries. As such he's able not only to discuss politics with the leaders and leading lights but also to find ways to travel when it might have seemed nigh-on impossible to do so. Few will have been able to go to Vienna as the Anschluss was happening and compare the street scenes to those he experienced during the Russian revolution. Fewer yet would have been able to then go on to Berlin via. Belgrade.

In many ways this feels more like a travelogue than anything else - it's certainly not an economic treatise on "Guns or butter?", although it is in some ways a political analysis of that choice.

Anyone who is studying the upper-social or political scene in this period will find quite a few nuggets on these pages.… (more)

Perhaps the most interesting book I've read all year.

Autobiography of a somewhat Bertie Wooster chap with a talent for languages and bonhomie, who finds himeself as a junior diplomat at the end of WWI. The first section is his escape from arbitrary execution as a spy by the Bolsheviks, commuted to exile because he knew how to make friends in high and low places. Then a few years in Central Europe, mostly Prague, as the old empire of Austria-Hungary is dismantled and reformed. Again, it's his talent for simply being likable that carries him so far.

The political observations are erudite and insightful, the characters are engaging such that we genuinely want things to work out well for them. As a view of Europe at its darkest, this gives strong hints as to what can happen at the worst, across all of WWII, the collapse of Jugoslavia and why that became so violent, and even some lessons as to why brexit is such a dreadful idea.

Now to read the rest of his books.… (more)