Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 The Cold War and the international history of the twentieth century
- 2 Ideology and the origins of the Cold War, 1917–1962
- 3 The world economy and the Cold War in the middle of the twentieth century
- 4 The emergence of an American grand strategy, 1945–1952
- 5 The Soviet Union and the world, 1944–1953
- 6 Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1955
- 7 The division of Germany, 1945–1949
- 8 The Marshall Plan and the creation of the West
- 9 The Sovietization of Eastern Europe, 1944–1953
- 10 The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945–1956
- 11 The birth of the People’s Republic of China and the road to the Korean War
- 12 Japan, the United States, and the Cold War, 1945–1960
- 13 The Korean War
- 14 US national security policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy
- 15 Soviet foreign policy, 1953–1962
- 16 East Central Europe, 1953–1956
- 17 The Sino-Soviet alliance and the Cold War in Asia, 1954–1962
- 18 Nuclear weapons and the escalation of the Cold War, 1945–1962
- 19 Culture and the Cold War in Europe
- 20 Cold War mobilization and domestic politics: the United States
- 21 Cold War mobilisation and domestic politics: the Soviet Union
- 22 Decolonization, the global South, and the Cold War, 1919–1962
- 23 Oil, resources, and the Cold War, 1945–1962
- Bibliographical essay
- Index
- References
6 - Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1955
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2010
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 The Cold War and the international history of the twentieth century
- 2 Ideology and the origins of the Cold War, 1917–1962
- 3 The world economy and the Cold War in the middle of the twentieth century
- 4 The emergence of an American grand strategy, 1945–1952
- 5 The Soviet Union and the world, 1944–1953
- 6 Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1955
- 7 The division of Germany, 1945–1949
- 8 The Marshall Plan and the creation of the West
- 9 The Sovietization of Eastern Europe, 1944–1953
- 10 The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945–1956
- 11 The birth of the People’s Republic of China and the road to the Korean War
- 12 Japan, the United States, and the Cold War, 1945–1960
- 13 The Korean War
- 14 US national security policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy
- 15 Soviet foreign policy, 1953–1962
- 16 East Central Europe, 1953–1956
- 17 The Sino-Soviet alliance and the Cold War in Asia, 1954–1962
- 18 Nuclear weapons and the escalation of the Cold War, 1945–1962
- 19 Culture and the Cold War in Europe
- 20 Cold War mobilization and domestic politics: the United States
- 21 Cold War mobilisation and domestic politics: the Soviet Union
- 22 Decolonization, the global South, and the Cold War, 1919–1962
- 23 Oil, resources, and the Cold War, 1945–1962
- Bibliographical essay
- Index
- References
Summary
In 1945, Britain was an activist world power. It possessed the world’s second-largest national navy, and its Empire–Commonwealth was genuinely global. The Dominions stretched from Canada to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; it had colonial possessions from the north to the south of the African continent, to the east of Suez, in South and Southeast Asia, as well as many scattered, and often strategic, island outposts. The ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Empire was India.
On VE Day, 8 May 1945, Britain and its loyal Empire–Commonwealth had 4 million troops serving overseas for the Allied cause. Wartime summit meetings had reinforced both the reality and the image of a Britain as a world power as Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States parleyed with the Soviet leader, Iosif Stalin, while the tide of fighting brought them all towards victory. It was therefore inevitable that the British would have a large role in shaping the untidy transition that was to come, and that would transform the world from war to an uncertain peace.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Cold War , pp. 112 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001).Google Scholar
, Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany (London: Harper Collins, 1995).Google Scholar
, Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).Google Scholar
, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002) –19.Google Scholar
and (eds.), Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series I, Vol. I (London: HMSO, 1984).Google Scholar
and , British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914–1990 (London: Longman, 1993).Google Scholar
, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media, and Colonial Counter-Insurgency, 1944–1960 (London: Leicester University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
, ‘“Minds, Not Hearts”: British Policy and West German Rearmament’, in (ed.), Debating Foreign Affairs: The Public and British Foreign Policy since 1867 (Berlin: Philo, 2003).Google Scholar
, ‘Entente Neo-Coloniale? Ernest Bevin and the Proposals for an Anglo–French Third World Power, 1945–1949’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17, 4 (2006) –52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany, and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990/1993).Google Scholar
and , ‘Introduction’, in and (eds.), Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
, Documents on the End of Empire, Series A, Vol. III, The Conservative Government and the End of Empire 1951–1957 (London: HMSO, 1994).Google Scholar
, British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind (London: Frank Cass, 2002).Google Scholar
, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).Google Scholar
(ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire, Series A, Vol. II, The Labour Government and the End of Empire, 1945–1951, Part I, High Policy and Administration (London: HMSO, 1992).Google Scholar
, The Economic Cold War: America, Britain, and East–West Trade, 1948–1963 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘The British Empire and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–1949’, in (ed.), Britain and the First Cold War (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990).Google Scholar
, ‘The Church of England and the Cold War Nuclear Debate’, Twentieth Century History, 4, 3 (1993) –83.Google Scholar
, Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-War Strategic Defence, 1942–1947, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2003), xcviii.Google Scholar
, ‘The Tragedy of the Anglo-Egyptian Settlement of 1954’, in and (eds.), Suez 1956: The Crisis and Its Consequences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).Google Scholar
, ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Dissolution of the British Empire’, in and (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 29 –42.Google Scholar
, ‘Mobilising Culture: The State–Private Network and the CIA in the Early Cold War’, in and (eds.), War and Cold War in American Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002).Google Scholar
and , ‘East Is East and West Is West?: Towards a Comparative Socio-cultural History of the Cold War’, in and (eds.), Across the Blocs: Cultural and Social History (London, Frank Cass, 2004).Google Scholar
, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2004) –20, quote on 416.Google Scholar
, ‘Great Britain’, in (ed.), Origins of the Cold War in Europe: International Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
, The United States and the European Trade Union Movement, 1944–1951 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).Google Scholar
, America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), chs. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda, and Consensus (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001).Google Scholar
, The Secret State: British Internal Security and the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994) –86.Google Scholar
(ed.), In the Midst of Events: The Foreign Office Diaries and Papers of Kenneth Younger, February 1950–October 1951 (New York: Routledge, 2005), 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘Ernest Bevin’, in and (eds.), The Diplomats, 1939–1979 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 103–35.Google Scholar
, ‘Calling the Tune? The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War, 1945–1960’, in and (eds.), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003).Google Scholar
, Churchill’s Last Campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951–1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).Google Scholar
- 8
- Cited by