The Semblance of Peace: The Political Settlement after the Second World War by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, Anthony Nicholls (review)

470 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW thathewas 'thefirstWestern scholar toexplore theJapanese archives, fuse themwith the greatvolumeof Britishgovernmental and privatepapersand producea definitiveaccount.'I concluded,moreover,that Dr Nish 'hasrelegatedLanger's Diplomacy ofImperialism asitrelates totheAnglo-Japanese alliance tothelevel ofan interimjudgment.' Thisvolume, whichcompletes Dr Nish's history of theAnglo-Japanese alliance, maintains thesame highstandards. The merits of hisworkareobvious; careful research, sound analysis, clearnarrative, andfirmconclusions, allofferedwitha gentle witanda sympathy forJapan. Otherhistorians havecovered some of the ground, particularly fortheperiods •9••-•5 and•9•8-•,• ,. DrNish, however, offers moreandheisabletodosoprincipally because ofhiscontrol ofbothWestern and Japanese archival resources. He istheonlyscholar to datewhohasproduced a roundedstudyof thissubject, weighedcarefullythejudgments of others,and offered fresh dimensions. Thenarrative iswellknown andneednotberepeated. Suffice ittosay thatboththe Japanese andBritish decision-making processes andthevarious influences thatwent intothose processes areanalyzed. The fall rangeof Anglo-Japanese relations is explored, andDrNish cleverly weaves intohisanalysis themes involving theUnited States andRussia. Along withthediplomatic andpolitical material, heexplores naval andmilitarymatters in thePacific theatre, economic andcommercial trends, the press, andpublicopinion. Theerrorsaretrivial,theareas ofrepetitive narrative arefew,andinconsistencies inanalysis arerare.Hisjudgments ininterpretation arerarelyquestionable andfew willchallenge himexcept atthemargin. In thislastregardreaders mightweigh his views ofChurchill (pp.96-7)andLloydGeorge (p.•,63). Myonlyserious criticism of DrNish's book relates tothequestion oforganization; forwhatever reasons, hetends tojumpfromtheme totheme. Thisisparticularly trueforthewarandpostwar years andDr Nishisleftapologizing toreaders forhis'briefdigressions.' I foundthese meanderings ratherunsettling. However,Ian Nishisa carefulscholar andhasagainproducedan impressive monographof greatmerit. M.G. FRY Carleton University TheSemblance of Peace: ThePolitical Settlement aftertheSecond WormWar. sII• JOHN WHEELER-BENNETT and ANTHONY NICHOLLS. London,Macmillan [Toronto, Macmillan], •97•,.Pp.xiv,878,maps, illus.$4•,.75 . Thediplomacy ofWorldWarI•anditsaftermath has beenthesubject ofsuch vast andvariegated scholarly effortthateachnewtreatise mustchallenge everhigher standards of originality anddefinitiveness. TheSemblance ofPeace laysclaimto no significant factual disclosures, noexhaustive detail anddocumentation ofanarrow case-study, norindeed tointerpretive novelty. Nevertheless, itstands outasasweepingsurvey , massive andmagisterial, of theevolution of alliedwaraims andtheir implementation. Two-thirds of thenarrative isdevoted towartime planning and conferences; theremainder covers postwar political settlements in Europeandthe REVIEWS 471 FarEast andconcludes withWest Germany's military integration intoNATO. Perhaps understandably for avolumeof thisscope, BritishandAmericanstatearchives have notbeen consulted forpossible amendments totheofficial documentary record. The utilityof thevolume isenhanced byanappended selection of documents ranging fromtheYaltaProtocol totheSoviet-Japanese Declaration ofPeace of •956. The authors havenodifficulty in demonstrating thePericlean proposition that menrarelyadhere tothesame views during thecourse ofawarwhich theyheldupon entering it.Theirinsights arecongruent withtheorthodox Western historiography of the period.The sources of the Cold War are tracedfrom the territorial claims advanced by StalinasearlyasDecember •94•, througha series of haphazard Westernresponses that amountedto injudiciousappeasement, to Stalin'soverwhelmingsuccess in achieving the old Tsaristdreamof preponderance in EastCentralEuropeandpartsof Asia.TheynotethattheWest's bargaining position was weakened bytheexclusion of theSoviet Unionfrom theItalianarmistice negotiationsandbyStalin 's embarrassingly scrupulous fulfilmentof theGreekclause in his notorious percentage dealwithChurchill. The newmenace from theEast'germinatedfrom an unholymatingof Marxistideologywith Tsaristimperialismand Pan-Slavism, a truly fearsomeamalgam,with an inexorabledrive for domination' (P.554).Their furtherconclusion, thatthesubsequent policies oftheWestern powers were 'a brave and essentialresponseof free men againstaggression,' is a rather ingenuousreductionof what were complexcalculations of nationalinterest.It reflectsan ideological certitudethat will be refreshingto some,disappointing to others whoseek deliverance atanycost fromthesimplistic equations oftheColdWar. Revisionist historiography isdismissed in twopages,and thosewhorequiremore specific critiques of this'school' arebetterservedby the recentstudies of Tucker, Maddox, and Siracusa. The breadthand fine literary styleof TheSemblance of Peacemakeit a useful reference workonthepolitics of peacemaking, anditsfundamental orthodoxy may wellstandthetestof time.All themorereprehensible, then,isitspublisher's decision to setan outrageous pricethatcalculatedly restricts itssaleto the captivemarketof university libraries. BENNETT KOVRIG University ofToronto The Myths qfCabinet Government. RICI-I^RI) •.S.CROSSM^•4. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, •972.PP.xxx, •26.$5.95. In his Anatomy ofBritain, Anthony Sampson includes Richard Crossman among those graduates ofWinchester whorepresent the'toughambition andsingle-mindedness' of thatelitistpublicschool. CertainlyCrossman's dedication to a singlethemeis evidentin thisstimulating book.In •963 he wrotea longintroduction to a new edition ofWalterBagehot's The English Constitution. There,Crossman acknowledged hisdebttoJ.P.Mackintosh's The British Cabinet whichhadbeenpublished theyear before.He tookfromthatcomprehensive andlucidstudytheargument thatthe collective cabinet government of Bagehot's dayhadgivenwaytotheprimeminis- ...