The Hitler Emigrés, by Daniel Snowman

Some refugees are more invisible than others

It is an extraordinary story. In the mid-20th century, a remarkable generation of refugees came to Britain, fleeing persecution. They included thinkers such as Popper and Gombrich, psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein, writers like Canetti and Koestler, scientists such as Perutz, Born and Chain. Their impact was enormous. Refugees founded the Warburg Institute and Glyndebourne, ran world-famous labs and produced films such as The Red Shoes. Yet this major chapter in modern British life remains curiously invisible.

Daniel Snowman's book sets out to trace the impact of these refugees. First impressions are good: it looks substantial, 450 pages with 45 pages of notes, and Snowman has interviewed many key figures. However, this is a hugely disappointing work, sloppily written, full of careless assertions and huge gaps.

Snowman repeatedly criticises the insularity of 1930s British culture. What about AJ Ayer's interest in Viennese logical positivism, the Stracheys' encounter with Melanie Klein in Berlin, the Muirs' translations of Kafka, and Herbert Read's exhibition of German art? Many pre-war Britons were insular. Many were not.

The biggest problem, though, is what Snowman leaves out or marginalises. Refugees from Vienna and Berlin are prominent, with a great deal about Gombrich, Weidenfeld and Hans Keller, but there is little about important figures from eastern Europe such as Lubetkin, Klein, Namier, Gellner and Bronowski.

Snowman's interest seems to be the arts, so medicine and science are pushed to the sidelines. Yet Ernst Chain was one of the men who discovered penicillin, while Ludwig Guttmann transformed the treatment of paraplegics at Stoke Mandeville.

Economists fare badly too: four references to Balogh and one to Kaldor. Historians such as Ullmann and Elias get short shrift. Psychoanalysis in Britain was revolutionised by Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. They are minor presences here.

If you're from east Europe, worked in a lab, or are less well known, you disappear. The more left-wing you were, the more marginal you become. There is little discussion of anti-Semitism; only passing references to rabbis such as Leo Baeck and Hugo Gryn.

Finally, there is almost nothing on the dark side of exile: loved ones left behind; the destruction of a culture; guilt, failure and suicide. Snowman describes how Fritz Busch left for England: "Mrs Busch wrapped up affairs." This is a person leaving behind a life. What did she take? What did she leave? Who did she leave?

Snowman's book is sloppy and lacks critical intelligence. Thinking of who he's left to the margins, it leaves a nasty taste.