Frank McDonough is a British historian of the Third Reich and international history.
Life
Francis (Frank) Xavier McDonough was born on 17 April 1957 in Liverpool. He studied modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, as a Senior Status Scholar. He later earned a PhD in history from Lancaster University, under the supervision of Ruth Henig. He was Professor of International History in the History Department of the School of Humanities and Social Science at Liverpool John Moores University until his retirement in 2021. He lives in Liverpool with his partner Ann.
Work
Neville Chamberlain and appeasement
His study of Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War, published in 1998, was reviewed in academic journals. R. A. C. Parker described it as "very well written, with a lively argument, which explores appeasement in society too".R. A. C. Parker review, Manchester University Press catalogue, 1999. Andrew Thorpe, described it as "a cogent and stimulating analysis of appeasement which will take the debate still deeper".Andrew Thorpe review in Archives (1999). Edward B. Segel wrote that it "brings out effectively how the British government manipulated the mass-media, the press and especially the BBC to exclude public criticism of Chamberlain's policies and convey the impression of overwhelming support".Edward B. Segel, "Frank McDonough. Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War", Review, Albion, vol. 31, Issue 2, Summer 1999, pp. 347–48, .Other reviews appeared in the German journal Das historiche Buch, vol. 47 (1999) and English Historical Review, vol. 114, (1999), pp. 499–501.
McDonough is one of the most prominent 'post-revisionist' experts on Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement, along with Parker, who was, as Sidney Aster points out, his "academic mentor while he was at Oxford".Sydney Aster, "Appeasement: Before and After Revisionism", Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 19, September 2008, pp. 481–526, . For Parker's influence on McDonough's work on appeasement see: Frank McDonough, The Conservative Party and Anglo-German Relations, 1905–1914, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, preface, viii.
Other books In McDonough's 2007 monograph, The Conservative Party and Anglo-German Relations, 1905–1914,Based on his 2000 doctoral thesis, . he moved the focus of analysis to the Conservative Party's role in the outbreak of the First World War. A German foreign policy scholar described the book in a review in The Bulletin of the German Institute of Historical Research as "a thorough and thought-provoking analysis, which draws on over thirty archives and provides a powerful and overdue corrective to the traditional depiction of the Edwardian Conservative Party as 'Scaremongers' and the chief promoters of Germanophobic views among British political parties in the years that led to the outbreak of the First World War"., review, Bulletin of Historical Research, London, May 2008, pp. 41–44.
McDonough's books include several on the Third Reich, including The Gestapo (2015), which according to a review in The Independent "question[s] how scary the Gestapo was to the ordinary German"; the reviewer in The Telegraph called it "brave" and "nuanced". His The Weimar Years (2023) is a prequel to his two-volume popular history of Germany under Hitler, The Hitler Years.Roger Moorhouse, "An Odious Story", History Today, Vol. 71 Issue 3, March 2021. He has also written textbooks including Fascism, Conflict and Communism, for the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations Board.
Media appearances and Twitter McDonough has appeared on TV and radio. He appeared on CrossTalk on Russia Today in 2010, debating whether the Second World War could have been prevented.CrossTalk, Russia Today, 8 May 2010; . He featured in the BBC One documentary A Tale of Two Rival Cities, which was part of the BBC's "History of the World" project, for which he also acted as Historical Consultant;A Tale of Two Rival Cities, BBC 1, 17 May 2010. the documentary won a Royal Television Society Award.Manchester Evening News, 22 November 2010, How Do Magazine, 22 November 2010. He was interviewed in two special programmes on French National Television to mark the 70th anniversary of General de Gaulle's 18 June 1940 speech when he said the "flame of French Resistance cannot be extinguished". McDonough appeared as an historical commentator on France 2 and in a special documentary featuring historians on de Gaulle, broadcast on France 3 on 18 June 2010.The Appeal 18 June 1940: The Historians Debate, France 3, 18 June 2010 He also appeared in the BBC One programme Inside Out commenting on a story presented by the actor Paul McGann that looked at whether or not Adolf Hitler visited Liverpool between November 1911 and May 1912. McDonough argued that evidence from Austrian police records, eyewitness accounts from Vienna, and shipping records all strongly indicated that the young Hitler had lived in Vienna at this time, not Liverpool, thus confirming what Hitler claimed in his autobiography, Mein Kampf."Adolf Hitler Liverpool links discussed in new BBC documentary", Liverpool Echo, 28 November 2011; The Times, 26 November 2011; The Daily Telegraph, 26 November 2011. In 2012, McDonough appeared in three episodes of Nazi Secrets, a series on the history of the Third Reich on the National Geographic Channel: "Hitler's Damned Women", "Hitler's Family Skeletons" and "Hitler's Millions". In November 2013, McDonough was featured in a BBC One documentary called The Story of the Swastika and a Channel 5 documentary called 7 Days That Made the Führer. In 2014, McDonough appeared in a 10-part documentary series called The Rise of the Nazi Party on Quest TV, part of the Discovery Channel. In 2022, McDonough along with historians Tim Bouverie, John Bew, Richard Evans, Jonathan Haslam, and Andrew Roberts, contributed to the two part 2022 Odyssey Television documentary for the BBC Could Hitler Have Been Stopped? The Politics of Appeasement.
McDonough has a Twitter account under the handle @FXMC1957. In 2014 the History News Network ranked McDonough's Twitter in the Top 20 History Twitter accounts.
Publications The British Empire, 1815–1914. Hodder and Stoughton, 1994, repr. Hodder Education, 2009, . Textbook. The Origins of the First and Second World Wars. Cambridge University Press, 1997, repr. 2014, . Textbook. Appeasement and the British Road to War, Manchester University Press, 1998, Hitler and Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 1999, . Textbook. Conflict, Communism and Fascism: Europe 1890–1945, Cambridge University Press, 2001, . Textbook.Fascism, Conflict and Communism, Educational Resources for Schools, Cambridge University Press. Opposition and Resistance in Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2001, "The life and legacy of Sophie Scholl for German resistance to Nazi Germany in the UK and beyond", Case Study, Research Excellence Framework 2014, Liverpool John Moores University. Hitler, Chamberlain and Appeasement, Cambridge University Press, 2002, . Textbook. Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party, Routledge, 2003, 2nd ed. 2017, . Textbook. The Conservative Party and Anglo-German Relations, 1905–1914, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, With John Cochrane. The Holocaust, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, Sophie Scholl: The Woman Who Defied Hitler, The History Press, 2009, Miranda Seymour, "The Gestapo: The Myth and Reality of Hitler’s Secret Police by Frank McDonough, review: 'brave'", The Telegraph, 16 August 2015.Richard J. Evans, "Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler", Times Higher Education supplement, 9 April 2009. Editor. The Origins of the Second World War: An international Perspective, Continuum, 2011, "The Origins of the Second World War: An International Perspective", Bloomsbury Publishing. The Gestapo: The Myth and Reality of Hitler's Secret Police, Coronet–Hodder and Stoughton, 2015, Marcus Ranner, "The Gestapo: The Myth and Reality of Hitler's Secret Police by Frank McDonough, book review", The Independent, 27 August 2015. The Hitler Years. 2 vols. Volume 1: Triumph 1933–1939, Apollo–Head of Zeus, 2019, . Volume 2: Disaster 1940–1945, 2020 The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, Apollo–Head of Zeus, 2023, Simon Heffer, "The best history books of 2023: from Churchill to Henry III", The Telegraph, 20 November 2023.Julia M. Klein, "‘Vertigo’ and 'The Weimar Years': Germany Between the Wars", The Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2024.
References
External links Official website