Transition of Power
Transition of Power
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
"The book is based on extensive research among offical papers and private manuscript collections on both sides of the Atlantic and it also reveals a mastery of the secondary materials...well researched and powerfully argued..." Canadian Journal of History
"This is a compelling work. McKercher's research is exhaustive and his arguments well marshaled." Albion
"The focus is on when and how Britain lost its "global pre-eminence" to the United States...Professor McKercher offers a revisionist interpertation in this scholarly and well-researched study." Business History Review
"Even readers who boggle at the author's apodictic judgments will find the scholarship in this book extraordinary. McKercher has emerged as one of the most prolific in a talented cohort of Canadian international historians who have continued cutting-edge research when the subfield has fallen into disfavor south of the border...superbly documented..." Journal of Modern History
Product details
March 1999Hardback
9780521440905
416 pages
229 × 152 × 24 mm
0.79kg
Available
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.
