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Army, Empire, and Cold War: The British Army and Military Policy, 1945-1971
The veterans of the Fourteenth Army who fought in Burma between 1942 and 1945 called themselves 'the forgotten army'. But that appellation could equally well be applied to the whole of the British army after 1945. Histories of Britain's post-war defence policy have usually focused on how and why Britain acquired a nuclear deterrent. David French takes a new look at these policies by placing the army centre-stage. Drawing on archival sources that have hardly been used by historians, he shows how British governments tried to create an army that would enable them to maintain their position as a major world power at a time when their economy struggled to foot the bill. The result was a growing mismatch between the military resources that the government thought it could afford on the one hand, and a long list of overseas commitments, in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East, that it was reluctant to surrender. The result was that the British created a Potemkin army, a force that had an outwardly impressive facade, but that in reality had only very limited war-fighting capabilities.
Army, Empire, and Cold War will interest not only historians of the British army, but also those who are trying to understand Britain's role in the Cold War, and how and why the British came to surrender formal rule over their empire.
Book Details
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publish Date: Mar 24th, 2012
- Pages: 346
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.20in - 6.30in - 1.00in - 1.30lb
- EAN: 9780199548231
- Categories: • Europe - Great Britain - General• Wars & Conflicts - General
About the Author
David French was at the University of York and the War Studies Department at King's College London. He spent 27 years at University College London before taking early retirement in 2008 to become a full-time writer. Professor French is the author of six previous books, and has been the recipient of the Arthur Goodzeit Prize of the New York Military Affairs Symposium. He is a three-time winner of the Templer Medal awarded by the Society for Army Historical Research. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Council of the Army Records Society.
Praise for this book
"Recommended."--CHOICE"A very well-researched book that succeeds in its aim to provide the first scholarly general history of the British army in the period from 1945 to 1971. In doing so, it provides a wealth of new information and challenges some widely held assumptions about the nature of that army and of British defense policy."--Journal of British Studies"French is expert in mining the vast array of available documentary sources, and is thoroughly steeped in the secondary literature; this new book will be essential reading for military historians. This book...illustrates how difficult it is to integrate the armed services into a general post-war history."--The Rusi Journal