A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution by Jonathan R. Dull (review)

124 Shorter Book Reviews Jonathan R. Dull. A Diplomatic History of theAmerican Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. xii + 229 pp. Map. Several years ago Jonathan Dull, associate editor of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, set out to provide historians, students and general readers with a new synthesis of the diplomatic aspects of the American Revolution. (As he points out in his Preface, the last historian to do so was Samuel Flagg Bemis in 1935.) He has succeeded admirably in his task. A major strength of the present book is the author's ability to discuss complex issues in a clear and concise fashion, which indicates that he has devoted a great deal of thought and effort to his work. The depth of his reading is indicated in a useful critical bibliography that covers forty-three pages of text and his analytical and literary skills are evident throughout the book. The other great merit of Dull 's approach is his generally successful attempt to place the diplomatic activities of the Americans firmly within the larger international context in which they and their European counterparts had to operate. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution begins with a concise and articulate summary of the events leading to the outbreak of war in 1775; as those of us who have taught the history of that period can testify, this is no mean achievement. The author then surveys the contemporary European situation with particular attention to balance-of-power politics and follows with chapters on the diplomacy of Britain and France in the inter-war period. here he contests the traditional view that war between the two great powers was inevitable in the 1770s. The second section delineates the development of American institutions and practices in foreign relations, analyzes the motives behind French aid to the Revolution, and places the expanding North American conflict in the international context within which European diplomats thought and worked. The author argues here that French actions were based more on the balance of power than on an emotional desire for revenge on Britain. The book then proceeds in Part Three to examine the evolution of the Franco-American relationship from one of covert support to an open military alliance. Part Four methodically develops the processes by which Spain was brought into the conflict and stresses the importance of that country's contribution to the eventual outcome of the war. One~ again we have an ably-presented revisionist argument, just as we do in the assertion that diplomatic shortsightedness and missed opportunities on thepart of the British were also significant in determining the end of the conflict. The book's concluding section covers the peacemaking process, emphasizes the importance of the broader international situation (including, perhaps with some exaggeration, the affairs of Russia, Austria, Sweden and Turkey) in Shorter Book Reviews 125 determining the positions of the contestants, and explains the factors of domestic politics and personalities that also bore on the outcome. Once again the author accomplishes a difficult task in a limited space with a minimum of confusion. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution should be a very useful book for non-specialists interested in the origins of the American republic and its institutions and practices. Like Piers Mackesy in The War for America, 1775-1783 1 , Dull argues convincingly that the outcome of the Revolutionary War can best be understood by placing it in a wider international context, as the participants had to do. This should avoid what the author calls ''the all-too-human tendency to believe ourselves [the United States] the central point around which the world revolves" (4). Note Peter E. Russell, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. 1 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965. Wm. Roger Louis and Hedley Bull, editors, The Special Relationship: AngloAmerican Relations Since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. xix + 450 pp. In his speech at Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, Winston Churchill referred to "a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.'' Even then, that notion was eclipsed by his more evocative image of the '' iron curtain.'' Now, as the contributors to this volume attest...