Britain's former ambassador to the US attempts a comprehensive
survey of Anglo-American diplomatic relations. Renwick gets off to
a bad start by first declaring himself unwilling to attempt an
"interpretation" of the history of relations between the US and
Great Britain, and then embarking on a summary history of those
relations since the War of 1812. Facts have to be put in order, and
putting them in order is a matter of interpretation. So what we get
is interpretation after all, and Sir Robin's account of events
before WW II combines conventional history at the textbook level
with mistakes based on wishful thinking. An example of the latter
is his assertion that everyone in Great Britain was united behind a
desire to see slavery eliminated from the American South at the
time of the Civil War. The narrative becomes more lively with the
advent of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and gets
better as we approach the present. Sir Robin obviously believes
that things have turned out well, despite some close calls. His
blow-by-blow approach to history helps to make sense of the
misunderstandings that led to the Suez crisis of 1956. But even in
his account of recent events, the author's insistence on disguising
his own point of view behind a bland narrative interferes with
opportunities to make the book interesting. Whether dealing with
the broad sweep of 19th-century history, or the intimate personal
relationships that have forged Anglo-American diplomacy during the
last half-century, Sir Robin's attempt to let the facts speak for
themselves does little to help readers understand the true nature
of America's special relationship with Great Britain. One is left
wishing for a more assertive, and personal, history of
Anglo-American relations since 1940. (Kirkus Reviews)
It was Winston Churchill who, in his speech at Fulton, Missouri, advocated a 'special relationship between the British Commonwealth...and the United States...the continuance of intimate relationships between our military advisers, leading to the common study of potential dangers'. Through the eyes of Churchill, Roosevelt and their successors, Sir Robin Renwick traces the development of the Anglo-American relationship since the desperate summer of 1940 and the part it played in the shaping of the post-war world. Detecting once again a whiff of the 1930s in the air, Sir Robin concludes that, as one of the ties that bind Europe and North America, the relationship remains an important one, and not only to Britain and the United States. There are many on both sides of the Atlantic who will think that the world would have been poorer without it. Nor has the world yet assumed so secure and predictable a form as to render it redundant.
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