�������t¶��

But then, just as we think we understand White’s broader point, his thoughts on small-town life and the virtues and excesses of hunting, he adds another dimension: the reroofing of his barn, “all during the days when Mr. Chamberlain, M. Daladier, the Duce, and the Fürher were arranging their horse trade.”

They were undone by their own timidity and careerist ambitions, and by Hitler’s stunning run of diplomatic successes — most notably at the Munich conference in September 1938, where Britain’s Neville Chamberlain and France’s É��dzܲ����� Daladier agreed to cede to Germany the strategically vital and mostly German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.

To the French Ambassador he gave a personal message to M. Daladier, which was published with M. Daladier’s reply; to the British Ambassador he made a long verbal communication.

Shanghai-based Stellar Works dyed its bentwood chairs with indigo; Almira Sadar put Slovenian crochet needles to work on extra-nubbly baskets and throws; and Provençal Cecile Daladier scarred the surfaces of her flower pots with dried herbs—harvested just outside her studio...

The day Neville Chamberlain and his French counterpart, Edouard Daladier, signed the Munich Agreement, Sept. 30, 1938, is perhaps the most emblematic moment of what poet W. H. Auden called a “low, dishonest decade.”