Collapse Of British Power

This is the first book in the 'Pride and Fall' sequence on British power in the 20th century. Correlli Barnett seeks to explain the decay of British power between 1918 and 1940 and its collapse between 1940 and 1945.

"'The summer of 1940 marked the consummation of an astonishing decline in British fortunes. The British invested their feebleness and isolation with a romantic glamour - they saw themselves as latter-day Spartans, under their own Leonidas, holding the pass for the civlised world. In fact, it was a sorry and contemptible plight for a great power, and it derived neither from bad luck, nor from the failures of others. It had been brought down upon the British by themselves.' Once...the British were thoroughly hard-nosed and aggressive about foreign plicy, but with Wellington's victory at Waterloo, there appeared the first signs of a moral change that was to leave them fatally unprepared to meet the challenges of the determined imperialists guiding other nations in the twentieth century."--Taken from book jacket flap.

The first book in the acclaimed Pride & Fall sequence on British power in the 20th century This book explains the decay of British power bewtween 1918 and 1940 and its final collapse between 1940 and 1945. Some have sought to expalin this ineptitude, particularly between the two world wars, by citing the tremendous costs of the First World War in both treasure and manpower. Not so, says Corelli Barnett, who ruthlessly identifies the root causes which reduced Britain eventually to a satellite of the USA. Ranging over 100 years, drawing together arguments from many spheres - education and industry, diplomatic and imperial history, Cabinet papers and the Press - it is as fascinating to read as it is significant.

A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD NOTABLE BOOK After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. Yet it grew to become the greatest, most diverse empire the world had seen. Then, within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, a rapid demise that left an array of dependencies and a contested legacy: at best a sporting spirit, a legal code and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire covers a vast canvas, which Brendon fills with vivid particulars, from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments.

A major re-interpretation of international relations in the period from 1919 to 1939. Avoiding such simplistic explanations as appeasement and British decline, Keith Neilson demonstrates that the underlying cause of the Second World War was the intellectual failure to find an effective means of maintaining the new world order created in 1919. With secret diplomacy, alliances and the balance of power seen as having caused the First World War, the makers of British policy after 1919 were forced to rely on such instruments of liberal internationalism as arms control, the League of Nations and global public opinion to preserve peace. Using Britain's relations with Soviet Russia as a focus for a re-examination of Britain's dealings with Germany and Japan, this book shows that these tools were inadequate to deal with the physical and ideological threats posed by Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism and Japanese militarism.

Paul Kennedy's classic naval history, now updated with a new introduction by the author This acclaimed book traces Britain's rise and fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural 'sons of the waves', he suggests instead that the country's fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between 'continental' and 'maritime' schools of strategy over Britain's policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political and strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history. A new introduction extends his analysis into the twenty-first century and reflects on current American and Chinese ambitions for naval mastery. 'Excellent and stimulating' Correlli Barnett 'The first scholar to have set the sweep of British Naval history against the background of economic history' Michael Howard, Sunday Times 'By far the best study that has ever been done on the subject ... a sparkling and apt quotation on practically every page' Daniel A. Baugh, International History Review 'The best single-volume study of Britain and her naval past now available to us' Jon Sumida, Journal of Modern History

Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britainis an original and controversial analysis of the thesis, made familiar in recent years by Martin J. Wiener, Anthony Sampson, Correlli Barnett, and others, which states that Britain's alleged economic decline since 1870 was the result of deep-seated anti-industrial factors in Britain's culture. Rubinstein argues, from a novel perspective, that Britain was never an industrial, but always a commercial/financial economy whose comparative advantage lay within that area. Rubinstein illustrates that the much-criticized features of Britain's class system, such as the public schools, were actually efficient instruments to enhance this competitive advantage. He closely examines Britain's cultural values and elite structures to demonstrate that these were both rational and modern, arguing that Britain's standard of living has been virtually identical to all countries whose economies have been considered more "successful." Emphasizing the centralimportance of London-based finance and addressing socialism, Keynesianism, and Thatcherism,Capitalism, Culture, and Decline inBritainpresents an original and challenging contribution to this debate.