Baffy: The Diaries of Blanche Dugdale 1936-1947

Blanche ‘Baffy’ Dugdale was Arthur James Balfour''s niece and his official biographer. She was also a lifelong friend and confidante of Chaim Weizmann, the world-renowned Zionist leader. Privy to an abundance of top-drawer political contacts, Baffy straddled both these worlds, that of the idiosyncrasies of upper-class English politics, and that of a resurgent Jewish nationalism. In this manner, Baffy, playing a behind-the-scenes role, witnessed, and with shrewd insight, commented upon, some of the most dramatic events of the years her diaries cover, 1936–1947. Little of consequence escaped her discerning eye: the Abdication crisis; the Peel partition proposals; the Munich agreement; the May 1939 White Paper; the course of the war and the first news of the Holocaust; the post-war struggle for a Jewish state; and finally, and for Baffy triumphantly, the establishment of the State of Israel._x000D_These are some of the tumultuous events Baffy recorded in her detailed, pertinent, and often provocative style. Her diaries offer us a document of genuine historical interest, granting us an invaluable insider''s glimpse into the controversial world of politics, domestic and international.