Book excerpt: This classic account of interwar diplomacy examines the curious fate of the diplomat, “the honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country,” in the capitals of a darkening Europe. These men—ambassadors in the field and officials in the Foreign Office—worked against time in a world that witnessed the complete reorganization of the European system amid the onslaught of totalitarianism. Leading experts investigate the diplomatic history of these years through the eyes of those entrusted with the extraordinarily delicate task of conducting the fateful negotiations that effect national policy. Drawing on government archives, European memoirs, and diplomatic studies, this book is both an absorbing history of twenty years of crisis and a searching analysis of the role of diplomacy in the modern age.