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Review of:

From world war to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the international history of the 1940s by David Reynolds
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006
Pages: 376. £30.00

Reviewed By: Nicholas Bird
Reviewed in: International Affairs
Date accepted online: 28/03/2007
Published in print: Volume 83, Issue 1, Pages 187-220
See all reviews for this journal

History

David Reynolds is Professor of International History at Cambridge and a respected specialist in Anglo-American relations, particularly of the 1940s. These essays, written over 20 years, were mostly delivered as papers to international audiences. They have that mixture of compression (an audience is getting restless for the Chardonnay after 40 minutes) and occasional ingratiating (and grating), modish words or phrases that are better spoken than written: 'FDR used his personal contacts to get a handle on Hitler.' Another irritant is the habit of asking a question before replying: 'Did Churchill accept that an invasion of France would be necessary? To that the answer is "yes".' This is a conversational trick that does not work on the page.

But in the main this is a well-edited book that is strong on footnotes. One tiresome blemish is that there is no bibliography-books are credited in the footnotes but when repeated the details are not given in full, and so the reader has to rummage back to find the first reference. Quotations are not always clearly sourced. What unimpeachable authority do we have for Churchill's comment in June 1944 that Arnold, King and Marshall were 'one of the stupidest strategic teams ever seen'? Contradicted in part by Churchill's earlier comment (again, not clearly credited) that he had 'the greatest confidence in General Marshall both as a man and as a soldier'.

Reynolds says that these essays 'hang together as a sustained argument ...that they reflect a distinct methodology'. The last at least is true-his approach has been dubbed 'functionalist' which, in respect of Anglo-American relations, means looking at the way the relationship actually functioned behind formal treaties or agreements. Reynolds has also been influenced by the realist approach to international relations, and accepts the legitimacy, and primacy, of national interest. He questions the nature of power: 'power takes many forms-tangible and intangible, hard and soft.' He points out that the 'special relationship' is 'a classic case-study in what can (and cannot) be done with soft power' i.e. the power of persuasion through mutual perceived interest, through shared cultural and political traditions and goals. Some of his ground has been well trodden, not least by himself. The essay on 'Churchill's government and the black GIs' is a précis of Reynolds's own Race relations: the American occupation of Britain, 1942{5 (1995).

The other 17 essays examine, inter alia, Anglo-American relations before, during and after the war; the Big Three and their complex, shifting relationships and power; the origins of the war and the pivotal year 1940-'Fulcrum of the Twentieth Century'-and the Fight Alone ('Right Policy, Wrong Reasons' as Reynolds's chapter heading puts it). 'There was no formal "decision" to fight on in 1940', says Reynolds, but he then rather contradicts this by concluding that 'In 1940 Churchill and his colleagues made the right decision-but they did so for the wrong reasons.' He maintains that the 'popular stereotype' of Churchill's 'almost blind, apolitical pugnacity ignores the complexity of this remarkable man'. Churchill did indeed discuss the possibility of a compromise peace, in private, but hoped that German bombing of London and other cities would bring an outraged US into the war, after the November 1940 election (an optimistic notion revealing Churchill's romantic vision of an America untarnished with Anglophobia). He felt that if Britain could 'Keep buggering on' through 1940 it could survive, for the German economy was 'taut' and 'vulnerable to British bombing'. Reynolds points out that it was Churchill who championed a bomber offensive early. The author is no 'revisionist'. In 'Churchill the appeaser?' he demolishes the John Charmley/Alan Clark argument that Chamberlain was right, appeasement of Germany was the only way to preserve British power and wealth, and Churchill could have obtained 'reasonable' terms in 1940 and 'excellent' terms in 1941. Reynolds writes that Britain could not have retained any semblance of independence while vulnerable to 'strangulation' by blockade. Churchill 'was right', he maintains 'that Britain could not be secure as long as Nazi Germany controlled continental Europe'. But Reynolds accepts the accusation that at Yalta Churchill was guilty of appeasement, of 'writing off the Poles' but realpolitik perhaps demanded it. However, he adds that 'there remains a fundamental difference' between the 'man of Yalta' and the 'man of Munich'-'Churchill had his blind spots about Roosevelt and Stalin, whereas Chamberlain's vision was clouded about Hitler. Misjudging one's allies is dangerous, but misjudging one's enemies can be fatal.'

Churchill's strengths and weaknesses as an allied leader and strategist are ably described, as is the drift towards the Cold War ('unwanted and unintended' ...'more circuitous than hindsight suggests'). In his chapter on 'Allied grand strategy in Europe' the author summarizes Churchill's strategic priorities and whims, his 'chauvinism', his desire to put Britain centre stage, concluding that the last year of the war saw the 'progressive marginalization of Churchill's grand strategy' due to US numerical dominance. This chauvinism explains Churchill's championing of the Italian campaign where British troops were in the majority, slogging their way towards the Po through terrain ideally suited for defence, something Churchill never fully appreciated. Reynolds neatly encapsulates Churchill's Russian policy-'not confrontation but negotiation from strength'. But Churchill had unwonted faith in Stalin's word.

Despite being spoken addresses, these essays read surprisingly well, the odd clumsy phrase notwithstanding. They are full of insight, robust but not perverse opinion, and wit. The author is an unrivalled historian of this most dramatic of decades-the 1940s-and this is a further valuable and enjoyable contribution to their study.