Britain, America and the War Debt Controversy: The Economic Diplomacy of an Unspecial Relationship, 1917-45

Even at its peak, during the Second World War, the so-called "Special Relationship" between Britain and the United States meant rather different things to the two great English-speaking powers involved. Few issues more ably demonstrate the complex nature of this ambivalent relationship, between the wars, than the vexed question of British and Allied war debts to the United States after World War I. Robert Self focuses on this beguiling - and until now much neglected - period in Anglo-American relations. The war debt was a particularly sensitive area of discussion in a world beset by economic difficulty, and militarizing again in preparation for the next great outbreak of violence. Sentimental notions of shared cultural and democratic values were tempered by a growing awareness of conflicting commercial, economic, strategic, naval and diplomatic imperatives. Based upon extensive, previously unpublished archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, in official and private collections ofpapers, for the first time this book offers a detailed, comprehensive analysis of the origins of the war debt problem from the 1920s through to Roosevelt's Lend-Lease programme in 1940-41. This new volume fills in the details of this crucial period of transition, and sets the stage for the events that occurred during the second war and beyond. It will be of great interest for diplomats, journalists, as well as students and scholars of political, diplomatic, economic and international history.

Robert Self is Reader in British Politics at London Metropolitan University.