‘A long, slow and painful road’: The Anglo-American alliance and the issue of cooperation with the USSR from Teheran to D-Day

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis.The Second World War Anglo–American alliance was less cohesive on the political side than the military. There were widening divergences between Britain and the United States with regard to the best way to handle co-operation with the Soviet Union during 1944. Some shared assumptions about the motivations of Soviet policy existed, but British and American policy-makers not only formulated different approaches, they consistently viewed their own to be more successful than those of their ally. There was an opportunity to co-ordinate polices during American Under-Secretary of State Edward Stettinius's mission to London in April 1944 but the fact that the issue was barely discussed is symptomatic of the situation. The British Foreign Office gained the backing of Winston Churchill in an attempt to forge ahead with pragmatic arrangements with the Russians. A satisfaction with their own efforts on both sides meant that the British and American bureaucracies made no serious and sustained attempt to co-ordinate their policies towards the Soviet Union through 1944, in contrast to the closeness of co-operation in other areas

Friends - of a kind: America and its allies in the Second World War

Copyright @ 2006 Cambridge University PressThe Second World War continues to be an attractive subject for scholars and evenmore so for those writing for a general readership. One of the more traditional areas of focus has been the ‘Big Three’ – the alliance of the United States with Britain and the Soviet Union. Public interest in the three leaders – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – remains high, and their decisions continue to resonate in the post-Cold War era, as demonstrated by continued (and often ahistorical) references to the decisions made at the Yalta Conference. Consequently, while other aspects of Second World War historiography have pushed into new avenues of exploration, that which has looked at the Grand Alliance has followed fairly conventional lines – the new Soviet bloc materials have been trawled to answer old questions and using the frames of reference that developed during the Cold War. This has left much to be said about the nature of the relationship of the United States with its great allies and the dynamics and processes of that alliance, and overlooked full and rounded analysis of the role of that alliance as the instrument of Axis defeat

Protecting the Northern Flank, or keeping the Cold War out of Scandinavia’? British planning and the debate on the place of Norway and Denmark in a North Atlantic pact, 1947-49

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis.A pragmatic, but focused, pursuit by British policy-makers of an alliance is often regarded as a central element in the genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty. Analysis of the issue of Scandinavian membership shows that British policy was not actually consistent regarding either means or ends. It was subject to internal debate, based upon conflicting assumptions in the Oslo embassy, the Foreign Office, and the armed forces. The Foreign Office's main concern was to provide Norway and Denmark with a sense of security so that they would take measures against internal subversion, while the military was more concerned to prevent British military resources being overstretched and were prepared to accept Scandinavian neutrality: they wished if possible to keep the cold war out of Scandinavia. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office did not believe this was possible, nor necessarily desirable, but were less than wholehearted about Norway and Denmark joining the pact on their own. Even in early 1949, when Soviet pressure was applied to Norway, Britain was ambivalent about whether Norway should be a founder-member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although Britain strongly desired the alliance for long-term gains, they worked hard to ensure the form it took worked to meet their short-term needs

Preaching Fools: The Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly

Preaching fools: the Gospel as a rhetoric of folly. Author: Charles L Campbell; Johan Cilliers. Publisher: Waco, Tex. : Baylor University Press, ©2012. ISBN: 978160258367

‘The impression is growing … that the United States is hard when dealing with us’: Ernest Bevin and Anglo-American relations at the dawn of the cold war

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 Board of Transatlantic Studies.This article examines British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's views on Anglo-American relations during the crucial year of 1947. It challenges the view that Bevin was unquestioningly pro-American. It demonstrates how Bevin pushed the embassy in Washington to project a view of Britain, based on answering American criticisms robustly. He saw Britain's problems to be a consequence of American failures to act responsibly, as he saw it. Bevin was frustrated with American attitudes, and sought to bring them to underwrite his own policies and shape theirs around his strong belief that Britain had earned their support and that they should compensate Britain for its past sacrifices in the common cause. Bevin was not coldly pragmatic, nor was he uncritically pro-American, or merely a puppet in the hands of his Foreign Office officials

Review of "This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly"

Reinhart, Carmen M. and Rogoff, Kenneth (2009) This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press

Water quality strategy for the Lockwoods Folly River: A partnership for an ailing river

As with a majority of the remaining undeveloped coastal areas in North Carolina, Brunswick County is not a hidden treasure any more. Since 1980 the county’s population has more than tripled to over 95,000 and another 30,000 or so residents are expected to make this last bastion of undeveloped southeastern NC their home by 2020, even with the current economic downturn. As the 29th fastest growing county in the nation this population explosion is resulting in rapid landscape scale land use changes within the watershed of the Lockwoods Folly River. Subdivisions, shopping centers, new highways and bridges, golf courses, and marinas are becoming significant land use activities. The surging development within this 150-square mile 88 thousand-acre watershed has had a severe effect on the health of the river. The portion of the river closed to shell fishing has more that tripled from 18 percent in 1980 to more than 55 percent today and 60% of the beds are considered impaired. For generations, locals have enjoyed the bounty of the Lockwoods Folly River and estuarine system famed for its rich and abundant shell fish beds and excellent coastal inshore fishing. This river system stretches from the Lockwoods Folly Inlet at the Atlantic Ocean inland where it makes the transformation from saltwater marshes to a winding blackwater river that snakes into hundreds of smaller tributaries and blackwater swamps. (PDF contains 4 pages