The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany and the Origins of the Cold War - Hardcover

Deighton, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198273320 ISBN 13: 9780198273325

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1990

Synopsis

"The Impossible Peace" offers a new interpretation of Britain's policy towards Germany in the years immediatelly following the Second World War, and reassesses the part played by Britain in the collapse of the Grand Alliance and the development of what came to be known as the cold war. After the war Germany became the main battleground and the principal prize in the emerging struggle between East and West. Traditionalist accounts of this period blame the Soviet Union for both the division of Germany and the onset of the Cold War. With the opening of the American archives a new school of historians came forward to challenge this view. What both traditionalists and revisionists have tended to ignore is the crucial role played by Britain. To redress the balance, Anne Deighton re-examines the origins of the Cold War from the British perspective. Using oficial British documents, she traces the course of British foreign policy towards Germany against the background of growing East-West tensions. To achieve four-power harmony in Germany in this new setting was to dream of an impossible peace. The author argues that Britain in fact took "Western" strategy to contain the genuinely feared threat of Soviet expansionism across Europe. This book sheds new light on personalities and policy-making in the post-war Labour Government. It also reveals the vital role played by Whitehall officials in welding together a foreign policy based on the assumption that Britain could still act as a great power on the world stage.

About this title

Review

should be read by all who have an interest in the conduct of Britain's foreign affairs ... she has buttressed her case with impressive archival research and interviews with surviving participants ... all will be in debt to Anne Deighton's work. (New Statesman and Society)

thorough and perceptive study ... trenchant, insightful account. (European History Quarterly)

The developments she describes will be of lasting historical significance, not only for the forty years of Cold War, which now seems to have come to its conclusion, but for our understanding of Britain's relationship with her European neighbours and with the United States. (Oxford International Review)

an important contribution to the subject (Millenium)

Anne Deighton adds to the growing literature seeking to illuminate and enhance the role of Britain in the beginning of the cold war. (Political Studies)

From the Back Cover

The Impossible Peace offers a new interpretation of Britain's policy towards Germany in the years immediately following the Second World War, and reassesses the part played by Britain in the development of the Cold War.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198273320
• ISBN 13: 9780198273325
• Binding: Hardcover