Research Catalog

Title

The politics of continuity : British foreign policy and the Labour government, 1945-46 / John Saville.

Author

Saville, John.

Publication

London ; New York : Verso, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 293 pages; 25 cm

Summary

• This original and lucid book examines the foreign policy of the British Labour government in the aftermath of the Second World War. It exposes Britain's complicity in the creation of the Cold War and emphasizes the continuity between Labour's policies and those of Churchill's coalition government, underscoring the political influence exercised by senior members of the Foreign Office.
• Drawing on substantial new research, Saville focuses on the role of Ernest Bevin and his differences with Clement Attlee, particularly with regard to the Middle East. Countering the widely held view that Bevin sought accommodation with the Soviet Union, he reveals Labour's Foreign Secretary as a fervent ideologue, wholly in agreement with the deep-seated anti-Sovietism of his permanent officials.
• Saville moves beyond the 'revisionist' American scholarship of the 1960s and 70s to show the Foreign Office, under Bevin's generalship, vigorously encouraging and then collaborating with the Americans in the pursuit of Cold War policies. The Politics of Continuity opens new avenues in the post-war diplomatic record. It will create a wide-ranging debate among historians and prove to be a necessary work of reference for all those interested in international relations.

Subject

• Attlee, C. R. 1883-1967
• Bevin, Ernest, 1881-1951
• Labour Party (Great Britain) > History > 20th century
• Great Britain > Foreign relations > 1945-

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-284) and index.

Contents

1. The Mind of the Foreign Office. Whitehall. Moscow. Washington -- 2. Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary: Attitudes, Work Patterns, Health -- 3. A Slight Case of Heresy: Clement Attlee and the Middle East, 1945-47 -- 4. Some Economic Factors in Foreign Policy -- 5. The British Intervention in Indo-China, 1945 -- App. 1 Extracts from C.F.A. Warner, 'The Soviet Campaign against This Country and Our Response to It', 2 April 1946 -- App. 2 'The Soviet Union is no doubt war-weary': A Note on the Ravages of War on the Eastern Front in the Second World War -- App. 3 Christopher Hill at the Foreign Office, 1944-45 -- App. 4 Ernest Bevin and the Defence of the Russian Revolution -- App. 5 Cards on the Table: A Note on the International Department of the Labour Party.

ISBN

0860914569 :

LCCN

93035594

OCLC

• 28847087
• ocm28847087

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries