Britain And America In The Era Of Total Diplomacy

The relationship between Britain and America has been the most important bilateral relationship the world has ever seen. Dobson's concise and readable book covers the whole of this century and employs selected historical detail to expose the special relationship in its true light and in all its complexity. Dobson rejects tha claim that the US was ever hegemonical. Its realtionship with Britain - over the Suez Crisis and Iran in the 1960s and grenada in 1983 - clearly demonstrates that it had to bargain and did not always get its way. However, the two nations co-operated in every major crisis from the Great to the Gulf war, and together promoted liberal democracy and capitalism. The story reveals both more interdependence and conflict than has been recognised in the past. Nuclear, intelligence defence and other links betwen the USA and Britain continue to this day, but the importance of the `special relationship' has diminished for both countries. Have common interests disappeard to an extent that the scope for bilateral cooperation has diminished to insignificince ? It is in addressing this question that Dobson draws his conclusions. Coverning defence, economic, political and personal aspects of Anglo-US realtions, this book will be indispensible for students of twentieth century American and British history and international relations.

This volume throws important new light upon a pivotal period of transition in the Anglo-American relationship and sets the stage for its equally dramatic transformation during and after the Second World War. Based upon extensive research in previously unpublished archival material on both sides of the Atlantic, for the first time this book offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the war debt problem from its origins at the end of the First World War until its final removal with the launch of Roosevelt's Lend-Lease programme in 1940-41. This work will be of great interest to diplomats and journalists, as well as to students and scholars of political, diplomatic, economic and international history.

28 George H.W. Bush outlines the new international order: 'Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union', 29 January 1991 -- 29 Clinton deprecates the 'Special Relationship': B.M. Seener, 'Report and Retort: The Special Relationship is not flat', 8 August 2007 -- 30 Major's foreign secretary characterises the fallaciousness of the New World Order: 'Hurd warning over "slide into disorder": Foreign Secretary backs imperial UN and defends Britain's global role to justify permanent Security Council seat', 28 January 1993 -- 31 Blair, 'Doctrine of the International Community', 22 April 1999, Chicago Economic Club -- 32 George W. Bush inaugurates the war on terror, 21 September 2001 -- 33 George W. Bush declares that the United States willundermine the international 'Axis of Evil': State of the Union Address, 29 January 2002 -- 34 Obama and Cameron, 'The U.S. and Britain still enjoy special relationship', 12 March 2012 -- Further reading -- References -- Index

The Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act of 1920 would transform American life, giving birth to the Roaring '20s with its bathtub gin, speakeasies, and booze-running gangsters. Yet, as Lawrence Spinelli so clearly shows, the prohibition of the manufacture, sales, and transport of alcohol would have wider repercussions. In a world of international relations deeply unsettled after what was thought to be the War to End All Wars, the crusade for temperance on the American home front would disrupt the critical Anglo-American alliance. Dry Diplomacy is the first complete treatment of the diplomatic ramifications of prohibition. Spinelli explores the widespread effects on international law, shipping, foreign policy, and trade. In this context, American interests appeared to be pitted against those of Britain as she sought to recover from the First World War by expanding trade, promoting domestic industries such as whiskey distilling, and reasserting shipping dominance in the sea lanes. American interference with international shipping--in order to disrupt what Presidents Harding and Coolidge deemed British alcohol smuggling--would lead to a diplomatic crisis in the mid-1920s. Drawing on international archives such as the Cunard Archives and the records of the U.S. Justice Department, Spinelli digs deep into an important chapter of American "independent internationalism."