Rehabilitating Neville Chamberlain

The magazine Slate is infamous for their counter-intuitive arguments wherein they argue that every expert is wrong on something because of one minor detail.  However, this reads true:

Chamberlain's story is of a man who fought for peace as long as possible, and went to war only when it was the last available option.

Hitler was not Hitler before 1939.  Before that, there was little to distinguish him from, say, Mussolini. And the world could have lived with another Mussolini.  Britain declared war on Germany on Chamberlain's watch, not Churchill's.

Even as the war-mongers throw around "appeasement" and "peace for our time" as naive pronouncements, historians are coming around to a more balanced and sympathetic view of Neville Chamberlain.