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Transition of Power

Transition of Power

Transition of Power

Britain's Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United States, 1930–1945
Brian J. C. McKercher , Royal Military College of Canada, Ontario
March 2006
Paperback
9780521025287

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    This book addresses one of the least understood issues in modern international history: how, between 1930 and 1945, Britain lost its global pre-eminence to the United States. The crucial years are 1930 to 1940, for which until now no comprehensive examination of Anglo-American relations exists. Transition of Power analyses these relations in the pivotal decade, with an epilogue dealing with the Second World War after 1941. Britain and the United States, and their intertwined fates, were fundamental to the course of international history in these years. Professor McKercher's book dissects the various strands of the two powers' relationship in the fifteen years after 1930 from a British perspective - economic, diplomatic, naval and strategic.

    • The first detailed analysis of relations between the USA and Britain in the crucial years before and during the Second World War
    • Includes a wide range of subjects, such as political, diplomatic, economic, naval and strategic history
    • Offers new interpretative material for readers of international history, the origins of the Second World War, and of the war itself

    Reviews & endorsements

    '… a thoroughly documented piece of research which marries the American factor into a detailed study of British policy in the face of the combined threats from Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Imperial Japan, and the consequent change in Britain's position from being the Colossus through whose legs Americans could catch a distorted view of world politics to the position of junior partner in an Anglo-American victory.' The Times Literary Supplement

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    Product details

    January 2005
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9780511037429
    0 pages
    0kg
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • Acknowledgments
    • Prologue: power and purpose in Anglo-American relations, 1919–29
    • 1. The end of Anglo-American naval rivalry, 1929–30
    • 2. The undermining of war debts and reparations, 1929–32
    • 3. Disarmament and security in Europe and the Far East, 1930–2
    • 4. The unravelling of cooperation, 1932–3
    • 5. Moving away from the United States, 1933–4
    • 6. Britain, the United States, and the global balance of power, 1934–5
    • 7. From Abyssinia to Brussels via London, Madrid and Peking, 1935–7
    • 8. Appeasement, deterrence, and Anglo-American relations, 1938–9
    • 9. Belligerent Britain and the neutral United States, 1939–41
    • Epilogue: 'A new order of things', 1941–5
    • Select bibliography
    • Index.
      Author
    • Brian J. C. McKercher , Royal Military College of Canada, Ontario