The meaning of the term "appeasement" has changed throughout the years. According to Paul Kennedy in his Strategy and Diplomacy, 1983, appeasement is "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be, expensive, bloody and possibly dangerous." It gained its negative reputation for its use in the build up to World War II. It had previously been employed by the British government successfully.

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The majority of the Conservative party in Britain in the late thirties were in favor of appeasement. This was mainly because they considered that Hitler would be satisfied with gaining control of parts of Central Europe. Churchill was relatively isolated in believing that Germany could be a threat for the British Empire.

However, appeasement has also been deemed successful by many historians, as with the 'bought' year of 1938-39, Britain rapidly increased military production and with the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia allowed the protection of the British Isles. It must, however, also be pointed out, that in turn, Nazi Germany was able to significantly boost its military power in the time thus granted, and quite possibly to a greater extent than the Allies, particularly since the annexation of Czechoslovakia gave the third Reich access to well-developed Czech industrial resources and significantly improved its strategic standing, avoiding a conflict through the unfavorable terrain of the Czech-German border (even where this was unfortified) in comparison to Poland, which also suffered afterwards from a lengthened border with Germany.