British imperial strategy and the origins of the Cold War 1944-49

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Bibliographic Information

British imperial strategy and the origins of the Cold War 1944-49

John Kent

Leicester University Press , Distributed exclusively in the U.S. and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1993

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book provides a new perspective on the origins of the Cold War by emphasizing the commitment of Bevin and the Labour Government of 1945 to a strong imperial role based on the projection of British power on a global basis. Its focus is on the key issue of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, but it also examines the role of sub-Saharan Africa in Britain's global strategy. This analysis points to previously neglected elements in the explanation of great power rivalries. The book argues that as the Cold War developed British aims were not primarily geared to the development of a special relationship with America or a place in NATO but rather to the development of the British imperial system in which the empire would be equal to and independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union. It provides a revolutionary new explanation for the economic and political crises which dominated British politics in the late 1940s and early 1950s, culminating in the Suez debacle. John Kent is the author of "Anglo-French Relations in Tropical Africa" (OUP) and "British Documents at the End of the Empire" (HMSO).

Table of Contents

  • Britain's wartime allies, post-war planning and the future of the Empire
  • the Empire and global strategy - imperial needs defined April 1944-August 1945
  • Empire and global strategy 1944-46 - implementing an imperial strategy and the breakdown of allied cooperation, September 1945-December 1946
  • Empire and global strategy 1944-46, the implementation of an imperial strategy - the Empire and the pursuit of European cooperation 1945-46
  • drowning Europeans clutch at African straws, 1947
  • "there's no success like failure" - the collapse of an imperial strategy 1948-49.

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