Preface

Summary

This book, it should be clear, is not a history of Anglo-American relations since 1900. It is not even a straightforward history of how the United States came to take the place Britain occupied for most of the nineteenth century, that of the primary world and oceanic power confronting a grouping of largely land-based continental powers. It is rather a study of how this process was perceived and understood (or misconceived and misunderstood) by those whose decisions and activities in the conduct of British or American relations with the external world comprise the historical reality of British or American ‘foreign policy’ in this century. It is a study of the rôle perceptions of Britain played in the decisions and actions of those who were responsible for formulating and executing American ‘foreign policy’ and of the rôle perceptions of America played in the parallel activities of the foreign-policy-makers in Britain. It is not a particularly happy story; indeed it has tragic elements in it – no doubt to balance the more hilariously absurd and ironic elements that equally tend to occur occasionally. It is a story of a relationship which from time to time went deeper than that of mere friends or allies even though its ‘special’ character usually disappointed those who tried to build on it. It is a relationship too that has changed with the new generations, the new entrants who, every decade or so, arrive at positions of responsibility and decision in sufficient numbers to alter the balance, the emphasis and the flavour of activity on each side of the Atlantic.