The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations Since 1945 eds. by Wm. Roger Louis, Hedley Bull (review)

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, it has lost its significance. Indeed, some question whether the reality ever coincided with the rhetoric. At best, in wartime, the "special relationship" was an unequal and incomplete partnership which, as David Reynolds comments in a valuable review of the 1iterature, '' grew out of a sense of shared threat and mutual need.'' Accounts of the Truman years (by Bradford Perkins), the Eisenhower era (by D.C. Watt) and the Kennedy-Macmillan relationship (by Alastair Home) confirm that tendency with another adversary in the Cold War. Truman, who shared the podium with Churchill that March day, heard but did not heed what the once and future British prime minister said. Subsequently, Britain was usually denied special privileges, even on atomic questions. Often there was no prior consultation despite, as with the Marshall Plan, an obvious British interest. Other than the North Atlantic Treaty, the major initiatives came from Washington, not London. 126 Shorter Book Reviews Anglo-American rivalry persisted in the post-war years, though the Soviet threat certainly enforced a degree of co-operation, as did mutual interests. Unfortunately , one exponent of that view, Richard -Ullman, makes the questionable assertion that the United States "called NATO into being as a means of rearming West Germany.'' That, he contends, was an example of American leadership in defining the response to the Russian challenge. Ullman blithely ignores the "Canadian crusade" as well as Bevin's commitment to Western Union in early 1948-both before the United States was committed to defend Western Europe in peacetime. These authors generally agree with Lord Beloff' s earlier depiction of the '' special relationship'' as an '' Anglo-American myth.'' More controversial is Beloff's contention herein that the United States contributed to the dissolution of the British Empire and thereby to international instability. Apparently, the late Hedley Bull particularly objected to Beloff's lament about the American failure to fill the void left by ''the catastrophe of decolonization.'' The debate on this topic, notably the contributions by Wm. Roger Louis and Lord Saint Brides (who also offers a blunt critique of Nehru's policy on China), provides one of many examples of the strength of thisremarkable collection. Britain's Ditchley Foundation and the Woodrow WilsonCenter for Scholars, merit praise for co-sponsoring the five conferences which resulted in this excellent volume. Even when the material is familiar-for instance, the essays by Margaret Gowing on nuclear weapons, Roderick MacFarquhar on China and Richard Gardiner and Stephen Marris on international economics-that does not detract from the value of the articles. These are informed, critical accounts by distinguished scholars, critics, soldiers and statesmen. They deserve a wide audience. Unfortunately, the high price ($96.25 in Canada-another curious calculation by Oxford University Press) will certainly deter individuals and possibly institutions from its purchase. Regrettably, there seem to be no...