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. ( )

Memoir of travel, mainly throughout Eastern Europe, just before the outbreak of WW II. Much of it was more relevant in 1938, but the best bits are the author's meetings and impressions in Austria, three days after the Anschluss, and in Berlin - which are chilling. ( )