The Embassy in Grosvenor Square American Ambassadors to the United Kingdom, 1938-2008

Leading scholars explore the role played by the American Embassy in London and the US Ambassador to the Court of St James's, not only in bilateral UK-US relations, but also in wider international issues over the years the Embassy has been in Grosvenor Square. This volume covers the period from 1938 to 2008, effectively the lifespan of what has often been termed "the special relationship," from its birth in the Second World War, through the challenges of the Cold War to the present day. Debates about the "specialness" of the relationship in the post-war context are key, as are discussions about the impact of the development and demise of the "Cold War," the ongoing impact of European integration, the influence of nuclear weapons and NATO, and wider economic, cultural, demographic and environmental forces that have shaped the transatlantic relationship to arguably form the basis of a new model of "transatlantic diplomacy."

J Simon Rofe is a senior lecturer in Diplomatic and International Studies in the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, University of London. United Kingdom. His research interests lie in the field of US Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the twentieth century with a specific focus on the era of Franklin Roosevelt, and Presidential peacemaking and post-war planning. Publications include: International History and International Relations, with Andrew Williams and Amelia Hadfield (Routledge: Basingstoke, 2012); 'Pre-war Post-war Planning: The Phoney War, the Roosevelt Administration, and the Case of the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations' Diplomacy & Statecraft, 23:1–26, 2012; 'Lord Lothian's Ambassadorship to Washington August 1939-December 1940' in The British Embassy in Washington between 1939 and 1977, Michael Hopkins, Saul Kelly and John Young (eds.), (Palgrave: New York & Basingstoke, 2009); and Franklin Roosevelt's Foreign Policy and the Welles Mission (Palgrave: New York, 2007).
 
Alison R. Holmes is a program leader of the International Studies Program at Humboldt State University in northern California. She spent 20 years in the UK, including running two general election campaigns for the Liberal Democrats, devising communications strategy at the BBC, managing the largest British-American business organisation and as speechwriter to the US Ambassador. She was awarded her PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 2005 and returned to the US in 2008 as the Pierre Keller Fellow of Transatlantic Studies at Yale University. Her current research is in the areas of diplomacy and international relations. Selected publications: 'Transatlantic Diplomacy in Global States' in Alan Dobson and Steve Marsh (eds), Anglo-American relations since the Cold War, London: Routlege, in press; 'Ronald Reagan: Conviction Politics and Transatlantic Relations', Transatlantic Studies Association Journal, Winter 2010; The Third Way: Globalisation's Legacy, Leicester: Troubador Publishing, 2009; '100 Years On: Who are the Inheritors of the 'New Liberal' Mantle, Political Quarterly, Winter 2006; 'The Shifting Subtleties of 'Special': Differences in U.S. and UK approaches to Public Diplomacy that impact global business', Journal of Business Strategy, Summer 2006.

"Despite the long-running debate over the nature and significance of the Anglo-American 'special relationship,' historians have not until now had a comprehensive view of Washington's ambassadors in London. The sixteen well-written and impressively researched essays in this volume offer a fascinating perspective on diplomacy as practiced by governments that have remained close despite their many spats. This is a book that should appeal to general readers as well as to scholars and students."

Frank Costigliola, University of Connecticut