Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940-57 (A John Curtis book) - Hardcover

Charmley, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0340597607 ISBN 13: 9780340597606

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995

Synopsis

The New York Times Book Review called John Charmley's previous book on Winston Churchill "entertaining, informative, and infuriating." With equally impressive scholarship, eloquence, and wit, Charmley now turns to the Anglo-American "special relationship" that was the cornerstone of Churchill's foreign policy, ruthlessly stripping away the myth to reveal the unsentimental reality of the Churchill years and beyond, from 1940 to 1957. Churchill carried on the war because of his misguided faith that U.S. help could be enlisted to save the British Empire, contends Charmley. President Roosevelt, however, sought an end to imperialism and thus entered the war only belatedly, ensuring that Britian would end the war weak and dependent on America. And Britian did indeed become a U.S. "pensioner"-a reality dramatically confirmed in 1956, when American pressure led to the removal of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. With vivid assessments of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden, John Charmley brilliantly continues his though-provoking-and sometimes infuriating-ways.

About this title

About the Author:

John Charmley (born 1955) is a British diplomatic historian and a professor of modern history at the University of East Anglia, where he is head of the school of history. Charmley's historical work has proved to be controversial, most notably his works on Churchill.

From Booklist:

As did his Churchill: The End of Glory (1993), Charmley's latest sally into "declinology," the study of how Britain faded from first-to third-rate power, should stir controversy, at least among historians. His comprehensive research rests on two ideas: that Churchill, the romantic, was less perceptive than foreign secretary Anthony Eden to the drift of American foreign policy in the 1940^-56 period, and that that policy meant "America wanted a compliant, non-imperial Britain as part of a European federation." Because Churchill ascribed often and eloquently a unique character to U.S./UK relations, Charmley has a fat target. He hits it repeatedly with his interpretations of FDR, who he believes inflicted permanent damage to British interests. In finance, sterling fell to dollar supremacy. In geopolitics, the British received no support outside Europe and eventually sustained the decisive setback as a world power in the Suez fiasco of 1956. In proving the relation was special on American terms only, Charmley surely succeeds, but Churchill idolaters may not notice as they recoil from the constant criticism of their hero. A brave, iconoclastic work. Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0340597607
• ISBN 13: 9780340597606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1