Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Great Britain – Foreign relations – 18th century'
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Szpakowicz, Błażej Sebastian. "British trade, political economy and commercial policy towards the United States, 1783-1815." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610189.
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Karges, Caleb William. ""So perverse an ally" : Great Britain's alliance with Austria in the War of the Spanish Succession." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11687.
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The War of the Spanish Succession saw the culmination in the development of European warfare during the “Military Revolution” period, which saw European states fielding larger armies with geographically more ambitious strategies under the umbrella of the nascent eighteenth‐century phenomenon of the “Fiscal‐Military State.” By investigating the Austro‐British alliance at the diplomatic, strategic, logistical, and operational levels during the war, greater insight can be gained into the mechanics of alliance warfare and how two allies reconcile independent war strategies in order to achieve a common goal. This is done in particular by exploring British attempts to influence Austrian war strategy through the tools of diplomacy and logistics in order to bring it more in line with British war strategy, particularly in the region of southern Europe. The chronological approach adopted by this thesis will demonstrate how the course of a war can influence strategy and, in turn, facilitate or impede allied collaboration. The early years of the war saw unsuccessful attempts at Austro‐British collaboration due to the distance between the two allies and the limited contact between them. The 1703 crisis of the Austrian monarchy following financial collapse, rebellion, and a hostile Bavaria forced a dramatic revision of British strategy, culminating the Blenheim campaign of 1704. The expansion of the war into Iberia saw a broadening of Austro‐British military contacts, and the strategic situation in Italy was the source of greater collaboration. However, this expanded collaboration could prove diplomatically damaging when strategic or operational goals diverged. The later years of the war saw Austro‐British collaboration reach its peak, but Austria had to sacrifice much of the direction of its own war effort in the Mediterranean to Britain as the price for British support. The final years of the war saw British and Austrian war strategies diverge in light of the death of Joseph I.
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Coudray, Pierre Louis. "Mourir à la guerre, survivre à la paix : les militaires irlandais au service de la France au XVIIIe siècle, une reconstruction historique." Thesis, Lille 3, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018LIL3H010/document.
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Cette thèse est une étude chronologique de la présence militaire irlandaise en France sous l’Ancien Régime associé à une analyse du mythe de la Brigade Irlandaise au XVIIIe siècle. En s’appuyant sur des sources primaires, dont certaines sont inédites, les quatre premiers chapitres proposent un cadre historique de la communauté militaire irlandaise et de l’acculturation progressive, mais parfois difficile, de ses membres. Le premier chapitre se concentre sur les écrits de l’élite française et de la littérature populaire d’Angleterre face aux Irlandais lors de la « Guerre des trois rois », tandis que le deuxième se penche sur l’image des soldats irlandais dans la presse des deux côtés de la Manche à la même période. Le troisième explique comment ces hommes sont devenus au fil du temps une troupe reconnue par ses pairs dans l’armée royale, tandis que le quatrième explore les stratégies mises en place par les militaires irlandais et leurs familles pour intégrer la société d’accueil. Ces deux chapitres montrent également le déclin de la présence effective d’Irlandais dans la Brigade. La question de la mémoire de la bataille de Fontenoy est au coeur du cinquième et du sixième chapitre qui étudient minutieusement la part des Irlandais dans la journée du 11 mai 1745 et le rôle des écrits du XIXe siècle dans la naissance d’une identité militaire proprement irlandaise. L’étude se focalise sur des sources contemporaines des faits pour le premier et des documents anglais, français et irlandais datant du XIXe siècle pour le secondThis PhD is a chronological study of the military presence of Irishmen in Franceunder the Ancien Regime linked to an analysis of the myth surrounding the Irish Brigade in the18th century. Based on primary sources, some of which have been hitherto unpublished, the firstfour chapters propose an historical framework of the Irish military community and thesometimes difficult but progressive acculturation of its members. The first chapter focuses onthe writings of the French elite as well as popular literature from England about the Irish in the“War of the three kings”, while the second one is about the image of the Irish soldiers in thepress on both sides of the Channel during the same period. The third one explains how thesemen came to be recognised by their peers as a valuable unit in the French royal army and thefourth one explores the tactics used by Irish militarymen and their families to integrate intoFrench society. These two chapters also show the gradual decline of the actual presence ofIrishmen within the ranks of the Brigade. The question of the memory attached to the battle ofFontenoy is at the very core of the fifth and sixth chapters where the part played by Irishmenon the 11th of May 1745 is minutely studied. The birth of a distinct Irish military identity in19th century writings is also discussed. The study focuses on 18th century sources for the fifthchapter and 19th century sources from France, England and Ireland for the sixth
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Walsh, Sebastian John. "Britain, Morocco and the development of the Anglo-French entente." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610042.
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Shen, Peijian. "Steps on the road of appeasement : British foreign policy-making, 1931-1939." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14262.
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This thesis studies the step-by-step process of foreign policy making within the British Government from 1931 to 1939. It aims to pin-point the origin, evolution and nature of appeasement, the principal policy-makers' viewpoints and activities in policy formulating and their responsibility for encouraging the aggressive powers. In the Introduction, the subjective and objective roots of appeasement are explored, and the Author examines the reasons why it was pursued for nine years without change. Highlighting the shortcomings in the past and current research on the subject, a summary of the approaches used in the thesis is given. The First Chapter surveys policy-making during the Manchurian crisis of 1931, not only a starting point for appeasement, but also to a large extent the main reason for the European appeasement. The Second Chapter shows how the British Government appeased Mussolini in the Italo-Abyssinian conflict of 1935-36, and how appeasement in the Far East started to cause appeasement in Europe. Chapters Three, Four and Five indicate the development of appeasement policy towards Germany during 1936 - 1939, namely, how it was hatched during the Rhineland crisis of 1936, and how it was, through the Anschluss, brought to a climax at Munich in 1938. Chapter Six analyses the policy of the guarantee to Poland and of the Three Power conversations in 1939 with the observation that these represented the Chamberlain Government's efforts to change their policy within the scope of appeasement, but that appeasement led to their failure. In the Conclusion, the various arguments in favour of appeasement are criticised and lessons drawn from that disastrous age.
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Talbot, Michael. "British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire during the long eighteenth century." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.645966.
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Khan, Gulfishan. "Indian Muslim perceptions of the West during the eighteenth century." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:dacf23d8-28f4-40da-b781-4e7cb940828b.
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The present thesis, entitled "Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West during the Eighteenth century", deals with Muslim images of the West at the turn of the eighteenth century as they were formulated in the minds of Indian Muslim intellectuals. It examines the modalities of experience and categories of knowledge of the West as they were perceived by Muslim scholars who had come into contact with the contemporary West. The main purpose of the present enquiry is to analyze the origins and the nature of such perceptions as were articulated in their writings. With the expansion of British political power in the sub-continent in the late eighteenth century Britain came to be identified with Europe as a whole in the minds of our intellectuals. The Indian intelligentsia's experience of the contemporary Western civilization became in fact its experience of the British society and culture. Extensive quotations from the writings of the authors under consideration are often used to illustrate the principal arguments in this essay. The thesis is based on relatively unexplored source-material which comprises Persian manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Library in London. Our writers' perceptions of the Western civilization concentrate on various aspects of European and, particularly, British culture such as social life, religion, political ideas and institutions and scientific and technological developments. The present study also attempts to assess the impact of an alien culture on various socio-economic levels in Indian society, especially since Muslims had largely lost a centralised political control over India. The declining Muslim intelligentsia accepted uncritically the impact of the new and powerful culture but the new knowledge presented in their writings was not significantly implemented in their society; rather, the indigenous society was overwhelmed by the new culture that was imposed upon it and gave in to it and its attraction.
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Marcuzzi, Stefano. "Anglo-Italian relations during the First World War." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2e1d8ba7-53eb-4c29-8974-d1fa0e36cc65.
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This thesis examines how the newly-born Anglo-Italian alliance operated during World War I, and how it influenced each of Britain's and Italy's strategies. It argues that Britain was Italy's main partner in the conflict: Rome sought to make Britain the guarantor of the London treaty, which had brought Italy into the war on the side of the Allies, as well as its main naval and financial partner within the Entente. London, for its part, used its special partnership with Italy to reach three main objectives. The first was to have Rome increasingly involved in the Entente's global war, thus going beyond the national dimension of the 'fourth war of independence' against Austria-Hungary. Britain aimed in particular to complete the blockade of the Central Powers by securing the Mediterranean. This result was achieved slowly - Italy declared war on Turkey in autumn 1915 and on Germany in summer 1916 - and not without contradictions, such as Italy's persistently self-reliant trade policy. The second British goal was to keep Italy in the war when the Caporetto crisis hit: British financial, commercial and military support was crucial to restore Italian forces and morale, and allow Rome to pursue to fight. Finally, in a wider geo-political sense, Britain took advantage of its good relations with Italy to balance French influence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. London acted as a mediator in the controversies between Rome, Petrograd and Paris, taking upon it the task of keeping the alliance together. Anglo-Italian relations worsened in 1918. Britain's leadership within the Entente declined and was gradually replaced by American leadership. President Wilson's 'politics of nationalities' produced a significant revision of the London pact: Italy felt betrayed by its main partner, Britain, and this caused a long-lasting resentment towards London which had far-reaching consequences in the post-war period.
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Nanson, Steffanie Jennifer. "Fleet Street's dilemma : the British press and the Soviet Union, 1933-1941." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14303.
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British press opinion concerning the Soviet Union in the 1930s contributes to an understanding of the failed cooperation, prior to 1941, between the British and Soviet Governments. During the trial of six British engineers in Moscow in 1933, the conservative press jingoistically responded by demanding stringent economic action against the Soviet Union and possibly severing diplomatic cooperation. The liberal and labour press expected relations to improve to prevent similar trials of Britons in the future. Despite the strain in relations and ideological differences, between 1934 and 1935, Britain and the USSR worked for collective security. The quality conservative press was willing to support a closer relationship, though popular conservative newspapers remained anti-Soviet. The liberal and labour press, though hoping for more, expressed relief that Britain was improving relations with the Soviet Union. The Spanish Civil War led the conservative press to resume its non-collective beliefs and to become ideologically critical of the Soviet Union. The provincial conservative newspapers were the exceptions. Liberal and labour papers were annoyed with the British refusal to cooperate with the USSR over Spain and became disappointed by the Government's decision to support appeasement rather than collective action. While the British Government reviewed the benefits of collective security, the Moscow show trials damaged Britain's belief in the stability of the USSR. All papers realised there was something seriously wrong in the Soviet Union. The conservative press advocated avoiding cooperation with a country weakened by purging. The liberal and labour press, though concerned about the image of the USSR, realised that Britain required an East European ally and called for an improvement of existing relations. In 1939 nearly every newspaper demanded the British Government form an alliance with the USSR against Hitler's aggression and criticised both governments for wasting time. Condemnation of the Soviet Union's signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact and role in the partition of Poland was relatively limited as hope remained that Britain and the USSR would collaborate to defeat Hitler. However, the Winter War strained these hopes and led to intense press condemnation of the Soviet attack on Finland. Nevertheless, in July 1940 newspapers became interested in the emerging conflict of interests between Germany and the USSR. Despite criticism of Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe, the press accepted that Britain's security depended on the Soviet Union. All newspapers welcomed the alliance in 1941 and ignored ideological issues.
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Gioe, David Vincent. "The Anglo-American special intelligence relationship : wartime causes and Cold War consequences, 1940-63." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708484.
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Al-Dailami, Ahmed Mahmood. "Reformers, rulers, and British residents : political relations in Bahrain (1923-1956)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:34575d84-bc76-4373-97e6-dc4f50fce860.
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This thesis explores the modern historical lineage of absolutism in Bahrain, and the history of challenges to absolutist state authority during the peak of British influence in the Persian Gulf, the period between the First World War to the Suez crisis of 1956. It rewrites the history of Bahrain and British colonialism in the Persian Gulf through two distinct narrative threads. First, it presents a new history of the colonial-dynastic state in Bahrain and the longer tradition of indirect rule from which its architects drew, and second, it retrieves the history of the popular movements that came to challenge it. This entails an examination of not only how colonial and dynastic authority was jointly exercised, but the ideas that justified such authority over a population conceived of as a set of cultural, and more specifically religious communities governed by their own 'custom' - the conceptual centerpiece of indirect colonial rule. Both these narrative strands constitute part of a broader history of the ideological clash between late colonial ideologies of rule and anticolonial nationalism in the twentieth-century Persian Gulf - a region that was never formally colonized, nor became the site of any successful popular nationalism. Yet both these forces exerted a profound influence on the nation-states that would emerge in the late twentieth century, especially on Bahrain. To chart that historical conjuncture, the thesis begins with the creation of the modern colonial-dynastic state in Bahrain in 1923. It ends in 1956 with the last and most important uprising in Bahrain's during the 20th century, one that was largely a revolt against the political and institutional structures that colonial reformers had established three decades earlier. At its broadest, the thesis argues that the process of state-building under indirect colonial rule in Bahrain derived from a body of colonial thought on native political life and behaviour, and particularly, on the prevention of rebellion that has its origins in mid nineteenth century North India. In Bahrain and the Persian Gulf, as elsewhere in the late colonial world, ideas about empire, the state, authority and rebellion are the intertwined threads that shaped political life and the prose of history.
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Chu, Wai Li. "We had no urge to do away an ex-colony: the changing views of the British government over Hong Kong's future, 1967-1979." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2017. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/399.
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This thesis discusses the British government's decision to maintain colonial rule in Hong Kong beyond 1997 between 1967 and 1979. After the 1967 riots, the Labour and Conservative governments started considering the negotiation of Hong Kong's future in the 1980s. Their views on Hong Kong's future evolved from the Labour's uncertainty, to Conservative's optimism, and finally to Labour's attempts to erase the 1997 deadline and to retain Hong Kong as a colony permanently. Factors taken into their considerations included Cold War, decolonisation, China's policies on Hong Kong, and Britain-Hong Kong relations. Both Labour and Conservative insisted on preserving British sovereignty over disputed colonies such as Hong Kong, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar regardless of the worldwide decolonisation. Besides, their eagerness to contain Communism and maintain Britain's international status, and Hong Kong's strategic and psychological value in Cold War outweighed the deficiencies of Britain-Hong Kong relations and China's unpredictable policies. Therefore, Labour and Conservative governments intended to run Hong Kong as a colony perpetually rather than decolonise it as did in other colonies. To achieve this goal, the British government adopted a reform-oriented colonialism. It empowered the Hong Kong government to deliver social reforms to improve the colony's living standard, which were used to prepare a colony's decolonisation. After the 1967 riots, although Governor David Trench implemented this colonial idea regarding Hong Kong's future, he remained as a housekeeper and only looked for the short term. Succeeding Trench in 1971, Murray MacLehose established a responsive colonial administration and delivered the Conservative's long-term strategy--to widen the living standard between Hong Kong and China--to deter China from recovering the territory. Notable reforms were on government-people relations, housing, education, social welfare and medical and health services. By 1974, the Labour government followed and modified this strategy to justify British colonial rule in Hong Kong domestically and internationally. In this process, Hong Kong was able to design its social reforms, to counter Britain's interests and to reshape its relations with Britain into a partnership. Yet Britain delegated Hong Kong to do so only to remain ultimate control rather than decolonised it. In other words, delegation of power and improvement of living standard were Britain's tools to retain its colonial rule in Hong Kong perpetually. Colonialism and decolonisation were thus interrelated.
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Rezk, Dina. "Anglo-American political and intelligence assessments of Egypt and the Middle East from 1957-1977." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608033.
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Tanrikulu, Osman Goktug. "A Dissatisfied Partner: A Conflict - Integration Analysis of Britain's Membership in the European Union." PDXScholar, 2013. http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1064.
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Since 2009, the European Union has faced the worst economic crisis of its history. Due to the devastating impact of the Eurozone crisis on their economies, European countries realized the need to deepen the integration. Without a fiscal union, the Monetary Union would always be prone to economic crises. However, the efforts to reinforce the Union’s economy have been hampered by the UK due to its obsession with national sovereignty and lack of European ideals. In opposing further integration, the UK officials have started to speak out about the probability of leaving the EU.
The purpose of this paper is to present benefits and challenges of Britain’s EU membership and to assess the consequences of leaving the Union both for the UK and for the EU. This study utilizes Power Transition theory to analyze British impact on European integration. With the perspective of this theory, the UK is defined as a dissatisfied partner. By applying the conflict– cooperation model of Brian Efird, Jacek Kugler and Gaspare Genna, the effect of the UK’s dissatisfaction is empirically portrayed.
The empirical findings of the conflict– integration model clearly show that Britain’s dissatisfaction has a negative impact on European integration and jeopardizes the future of the Union. Power Transitions analysis indicates that the UK would become an insignificant actor in the international system and lose the opportunity for the Union’s leadership if it leaves the EU. On the other hand, although Britain’s departure would be a significant loss in terms of capability, economic coherence is more important for the EU. Without enough commitment for the Union, increasing the level of integration with the UK would raise the probability of conflict with the integration process in the future.
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Reeh, Tina Alice Bonne. "The Church of England and Britain's Cold War, 1937-1948." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2c197863-2037-4cf9-af48-590f5694abea.
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The thesis deals with Britain's early Cold War history and the political history of the Church of England. It mainly uses primary sources, and contributes to our growing understanding of the early Cold War, especially in its cultural/religious elements. It explores how the Church of England dealt with the development of the early Cold War in Britain. It argues that in order to understand better the Church of England's role, an account of its perspective on issues of state modernisation dating back to at least the 1930s is necessary. It was then, during a decade of authoritarianism, and especially at the Oxford Conference of 1937, that the Church' standpoint towards secularisation was established, while the transnational agenda of the ecumenical movement was also adopted and internalized by Church of England. The thesis also examines the agencies which it built and worked with: in particular the British Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. As the Church is the Established Church, its relationship with specific government agencies, especially the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information also became increasingly important. The thesis reveals the Church of England's lack of autonomy in time of crisis and the importance of key individuals for the institutional leadership of the Church. Its ecumenical agenda had played an important role, but this was under pressure after the War, as a Europe-wide Christian community was increasingly challenged by 'Western Union' plans for a Cold War Western, Christian community and bloc. By 1948 the Church had been enrolled in the Cold War between East and West which was apparent in its alignment with British government policies and its withdrawn role in the ecumenical community. The thesis adds to our understanding of the Church of England's relationship to the state in these years, and contributes to the cultural dimension of the early Cold War in Britain.
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Jenkins, Ellen Janet. ""Organizing Victory:" Great Britain, the United States, and the Instruments of War, 1914-1916." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1992. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279079/.
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This dissertation examines British munitions procurement chronologically from 1914 through early 1916, the period in which Britain's war effort grew to encompass the nation's entire industrial capacity, as well as much of the industrial capacity of the neutral United States. The focus shifts from the political struggle in the British Cabinet between Kitchener and Lloyd George, to Britain's Commercial Agency Agreement with the American banking firm of J. P. Morgan and Company, and to British and German propaganda in the United States.
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Luk, Gary Chi-hung. "The Opium War, overlapping empires, and China's water borders." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7390858e-60d2-4b92-9cff-156ea7d763f8.
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This thesis explains the relationships between the British Expedition to China, the Qing state, and the Chinese maritime and river population during the Opium War (1839-1842). Drawing on scholarship on borderlands and frontiers as well as a variety of textual and visual sources, the thesis argues that the Opium War transformed vast coastal and waterway regions in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces into what can be conceptualized as "water borders." These water borders were initially characterized by the existence of the Qing Empire's sea frontier, where the Qing rulers, with the "inner-outer paradigm" in mind, strove to maintain control over those labeled as "outer barbarians," "Han evildoers," "villainous fishers," and the "Dan." The rise of a British wartime frontier in China and its adverse effects on local transportation as well as Chinese regional and international trade, however, destabilized southeast China's socioeconomic order. With the Qing forces weakened, Chinese piracy was unleashed, and given limited British naval power, there was an absence of any militarily hegemonic power in southeast China's waters. The British occupation and naval blockade, moreover, resulted in the emergence of overlaps and interstices of the Qing and British empires. On the one hand, the British Expedition and the Qing state conflicted over managing Chinese merchant craft and their trade. On the other hand, subject to neither Qing nor British control, many Chinese people living along the coast and rivers took advantage of the wartime opportunities and expanded their activities and networks to fissures of Qing control and the newly opened interstitial space. The thesis engages with Opium War studies by 're-reorienting' the war toward the coast and revealing the war's three "inner" aspects, namely the Qing efforts to "tame" the sea frontier, British rule in wartime China, and the Qing-British conflicts over controlling Chinese littoral people. The thesis, moreover, contributes to scholarship on late imperial and modern Chinese littoral societies. It argues that while the war marked the beginning of an unprecedented-scale interaction of Chinese coastal and riverine people with Westerners in China, the evolution of Chinese littoral societies during the war was in fact a continuation of the preceding centuries. The Opium War, the thesis argues, brought about one of the most dramatic political-social upheavals in late imperial littoral China. Furthermore, the thesis revisits British imperialism in late imperial and modern China by looking at the origins of the British "formal empire," limitations of British power, and wartime aids of the "indigenous" population for the British. The thesis also reassesses the significance of the Opium War in the history of the Qing Empire. It argues that for the Qing state, its anti-opium campaign and anti-British war in 1839-1842 constituted one of the recurrent threats on the maritime frontier for the empire's first two centuries. It also highlights some aspects of similarities and linkage of the Qing Empire's maritime and inland borders. Furthermore, the thesis reevaluates the Qing's state capacity during the Opium War and in the following years, highlighting its partial ability to control the empire's littorals. Last but not least, the water border framework constructed in the thesis serves to underscore some aspects of continuity in the political and socioeconomic development of late imperial southeast China, and to facilitate comparison between different frontiers in the Qing Empire, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
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Taylor, Craig David. "'La querelle Anglaise' : diplomatic and legal debate during the Hundred Years War, with an edition of the polemical treatise 'Pour ce que plusieurs' (1464)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:39d8aa2a-182a-44ec-afb4-cc922b6b8305.
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This dissertation offers a study of the fifteenth century French polemical treatises written by authors such as Jean de Montreuil, Jean Juvénal des Ursins, Noël de Fribois and Robert Blondel, together with an edition of perhaps the most important of these works, Pour ce que plusieurs (1464). This treatise may have been written by Guillaume Cousinot II, who had been personally involved in the events surrounding the attack upon Fougères in 1449, a subject addressed in highly partial terms by this text; moreover, Cousinot had visited the Lancastrians in exile in Scotland, which might explain how Sir John Fortescue was able to learn of Jean Juvénal's Tres crestien, tres hault, tres puissant roy (1446), and how Pource que plusieurs in turn drew upon the pamphlets of Fortescue. The polemical texts went beyond moral and chivalric discussion of the war, to address the complex legal and historical issues underpinning the conflict. In response to the English claim to the French throne, Jean de Montreuil adopted the Salic Law, a highly dubious and problematic authority, but one that achieved great fame particularly through the influence of Pour ce que plusieurs. Similarly, the polemical writers rejected English demands for Aquitaine and Normandy in full sovereignty by arguing that no French king could alienate the sovereign rights of the crown. In the sixteenth century, both of these principles were elevated to the status of Fundamental Laws. These texts were not intended to serve as propaganda, but were generally produced by royal officials to serve as manuals for their fellow administrators and diplomats, and perhaps also for the king and other members of the court involved in negotiations with the English. Only in exceptional circumstances were such works disseminated beyond the narrow circles of the government and court, though royal officials did draw upon them when speaking at public assemblies.
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Shimazu, Naoko. "The racial equality proposal at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference : Japanese motivations and Anglo-American responses." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1995. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8fd0f80b-a0be-42df-a1a0-7441fb27616b.
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This thesis is a study of the racial equality proposal at the Paris Peace Conference. It explores Japanese motivations for submitting the proposal, and the responses of the British and American governments which eventually defeated it. The thesis uses an analytical framework based on five categories of possible explanations for the proposal: immigration, universal principle, great power status, peace conference politics and bargaining, and domestic politics. The thrust of the analysis contained in the thesis is as follows. For Japan, the proposal meant three things: a means of reaffirming its great power status by securing racial equality with the western great powers in the League of Nations; a justification for Prime Minister Hara whose pro- League position was maintained by a fragile domestic consensus against sceptics in the government and the wider public; and a means of resolving Japanese immigration problems in the United States and British Dominions. But for Japan the proposal was not originally intended as a demand for universal racial equality. For Britain, the proposal was unacceptable because it meant "free immigration" of non-white immigrants into the Dominions. In particular, Australia adamantly opposed it also because of its political significance for Australian public opinion. For the United States, Wilson's determination to create the League of Nations at almost any cost led him to impose a unanimity ruling at the crucial vote on llth April 1919. Other explanations worked in the background. The proposal highlighted the importance of the link between race and great power status for Japan, Japan's insecurity concerning the League of Nations and the West, and Japan's different approach to international relations. Moreover, the failure of the proposal revealed the limits of Wilsonian idealism in that neither Britain nor the United States at that time seriously considered the possibility of universal racial equality.
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McElrea, Patrick D. "The office of the High Commissioner : Canada's public link to gentlemanly capitalism in the City of London, 1869-1885." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ29500.pdf.
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Larsen, Daniel Richard. "British intelligence and American neutrality during the First World War." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265571.
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This PhD examines the role of British intelligence in Anglo-American relations during the period of American neutrality in the First \Vorld \Var. Unbeknownst to the Americans, British intelligence began to intercept and decrypt virtually all American diplomatic telegrams between Washington and U.S. diplomatic outposts throughout Europe. Although several studies of Anglo-American relations in this period exist, none consider British intelligence's role. Providing an analysis of the relevant cod.es and cryptographical developments during the war, the thesis traces British intelligence's progress in deciphering these various diplomatic codes and offers an analysis of the distribution and use of this intelligence material. Through an exploration of this intelligence aspect, this thesis challenges existing interpretations of British and American policy in this period. A crucial conflict at the heart of British policy-one missed by previous historians-existed over the importance of the United States. Presaging America's international role later in the twentieth centu1y, many of Britain's leaders came to seriously doubt that, without the United States, the war remained winnable at all. Yet these officials contended with a second, powerful faction that remained wedded to outmoded ideas of America's limited relevance on the global stage and that refused to accept the existence of practical limits to British power. This conflict play~ out in several areas of British policy-over diplomatic, military, financial, and political affairs. Intelligence, however, provea a favoured weapon. Intercepted communications, sometimes ripped from their context, caused serious but spurious paranoia that the Americans were collaborating with Germany. Previous scholars, however, by ignoring the weapon, have failed to see the battle. Until it entered the war, American policymakers worked t:u:elessly to achieve a peaceful settlement. Previous historians have entirely dismissed the significance of these efforts, casting them as well-intentioned but futile. In reality, however, those British leaders who understood Britain's dependence on the United States tended to favour these proposals as a useful way of ending an unwinnable war that was bleeding the country d17- This PhD makes a significant contribution to the history of British intelligence, British policy, and American diplomacy during the period of American neutrality during the First World War.
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Andrews, Brian Peter Alford. "Exchange rate appreciation, competitiveness and export performance : the UK experience in the inter-war period." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:69b9bcfe-a2fa-4f02-8d49-2f847fa6dc32.
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This thesis principally studies the determination of UK export performance between the wars. Several improvements to the measurement of sterling's nominal and real effective exchange rate in the period are implemented, and the path of the exchange rate is related to UK and foreign exchange rate policies. The nature of competitiveness and the demand and supply mechanisms by which it may influence exports are discussed. In the light of this, and the commodity and geographical breakdown of UK exports, we suggest alternative measures of competitiveness which may appropriately be tested in econometric work. Aggregate UK export volume and price equations for the inter- war period are then estimated. Competitiveness, which is in turn influenced by the exchange rate, and the economic position of primary producing countries, are found to have had significant effects on UK export performance. Similarly specified equations are estimated for UK exports in eight industrial sectors. Distinctive characteristics of sectors may lead to substantial divergences between sectoral and aggregate behaviour. This is confirmed in further work on UK coal exports. Nevertheless, measures of the price of UK exports relative to the price of exports of other industrial countries generally give explanations of UK export performance which are superior to other competitiveness measures. A substantial statistical appendix containing data on, inter alia, UK and foreign exchange rates, trade volumes and values (with geographcial and commodity breakdown), labour costs and prices, together with the sources and methods used in their construction, is provided both for historical interest and to facilitate replication of results and further research.
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Lu, Jia Jin. "Chinese Soul in British colony :the traditional village life in the New Territories, 1898-1941." Thesis, University of Macau, 2016. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3537104.
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Gottwald, Carl H. "The Anglo-American Council on Productivity: 1948-1952 British Productivity and the Marshall Plan." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279256/.
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The United Kingdom's postwar economic recovery and the usefulness of Marshall Plan aid depended heavily on a rapid increase in exports by the country's manufacturing industries. American aid administrators, however, shocked to discover the British industry's inability to respond to the country's urgent need, insisted on aggressive action to improve productivity. In partial response, a joint venture, called the Anglo-American Council on Productivity (AACP), arranged for sixty-six teams involving nearly one thousand people to visit U.S. factories and bring back productivity improvement ideas. Analyses of team recommendations, and a brief review of the country's industrial history, offer compelling insights into the problems of relative industrial decline. This dissertation attempts to assess the reasons for British industry's inability to respond to the country's economic emergency or to maintain its competitive position faced with the challenge of newer industrializing countries.
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Furlet, Brooke (Brooke Gardiner). "The Influence of Naval Strategy on Churchill's Foreign Policy: May - September 1940." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501254/.
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This study examines Churchill's struggle during the summer of 1940 to preserve Britain's naval superiority worldwide, through the neutralization of the French fleet and by securing the active participation of the United States. Sources consulted included autobiographies of the participants, especially those by Churchill, Reynaud, Baudouin, and Weygand, document collections, and British and American official histories. This study is organized to give a chronological analysis of Churchill's efforts from 10 May to 2 September 1940, ending with the United States' acceptance of the destroyers-for-bases agreement. This act committed them to shared strategical responsibilities with Great Britain. The thesis concludes that Churchill's efforts in this period laid the foundation for later Allied victory.
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Montgomery, Alison Skye. "Imagined families : Anglo-American kinship and the formation of Southern identity, 1830-1890." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bbfb161e-513d-4c2c-9325-4e60d17b4fba.
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Anglo-American kinship, as a set of historical continuities linking the United States to Great Britain and as a reckoning of relatedness, constituted a valuable cultural resource for Southerners as they contemplated their place within the American nation and outside in the nineteenth century. Like the more conventional calculations of consanguinity and familial belonging it referenced, the Anglo-American kinship was contingent, convoluted, and, not infrequently, contested. Articulated at various times by masters and former slaves, ministers and merchants, plantation mistresses and politicians, this sense of belonging to an imagined transatlantic family transcended the boundaries of gender, race, and class as readily as it traversed national borders. Though grounded in biogenetic factors, the language of Anglo-American kinship encompassed claims of belonging predicated on confessional faith, language, and institutions as well as blood. This thesis considers the interaction between conceptions of Anglo-American kinship and the formation of Southern national identity, both unionist and separatist, between 1830 and 1890 by examining institutions and social rituals that both inculcated filiopietism and constructed Southerness in the Civil War era and beyond. The subjects under consideration in this study include the role of European travel in forging Southern distinctiveness before the war, ring tournaments and the ethos of medieval chivalry they promoted, the Protestant Episcopal Church and its role in managing the sectional crisis, postbellum immigration societies and their vision of the plantation South remade in the image of British manors, and the role that state historical associations played in reunion and the entrenchment of the Lost Cause mythology as the predominant historical framework for interpreting the American Civil War.
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Vercauteren, Pierre. "Des politiques européennes à l'égard de l'URSS: la France, la RFA et la Grande-Bretagne de 1969 à 1989." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211974.
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ABBATTISTA, Guido. "John Campbell e la universal history : commercio, colonie e impero alla vigilia della rivoluzione americana." Doctoral thesis, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5700.
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Defence date: 27 April 1988Examining board: Franco Angiolini ; Alphonse Dupront (Supervisor) ; Giuseppe Ricuperati ; Daniel Roche (Co-supervisor) ; Salvatore Rotta
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
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Alker, Sharon. "Gendered nation : Anglo-Scottish relations in British letters 1707-1830." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/14743.
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My dissertation argues that national tropes are continually in a state of flux as
they are employed to respond to historical, socio-political and cultural events and trends,
and demonstrates that their state at a specific moment encapsulates struggles between
various concepts of national identity. I trace shifts in the configuration of Anglo-Scottish
relations by undertaking a microanalysis of two specific recurring tropological categories
- familial and homosocial tropes — in a number of key moments in cross-border relations
between 1707 and 1830.
The first chapter, directed at the years surrounding the Union of Parliaments,
traces the suppression of cross-border dissonance in homosocial egalitarian tropes which
define Anglo-Scottish relations in the work of pro-union pamphleteers, and contrasts this
strategy of containment with the disruptive presence of familial tropes in the pamphlets
of anti-union writers. The second chapter traces the reappearance of this conflict in the
decade following Culloden. Roderick Random, written from the margins by Tobias
Smollett, reveals a discomfort with unifying tropes, although it ends with a cursory
gesture towards a national marital union. James Ramble, in contrast, written by the
English Edward Kimber, deflects dissonance onto Jacobitism, suggesting through tropes
of friendship that all aspects of Anglo-Scottish relations are seamlessly integrated into
British unity.
Chapters three and four foreground the 1760s, a decade in which Scottish agency,
in the person of Lord Bute, the Lord Treasurer, seems to reach new heights. Yet it is also
a decade of rampant Scotophobia, incited by the Wilkites to undermine Bute's authority.
Tropological warfare is an important element of this rhetorical conflict. In chapters five
and six, I uncover two competing concepts of Britishness, primarily created by English
and Irish writers, which emerge in the 1790s. The first engages with homosocial tropes to
foreground Scottish agency in nation-building and empire-building projects, but does so
at the expense of a distinct Scottish culture. The second, also produced by English and
Irish writers, reifies and celebrates Scottish culture through tropes of cross-border
courtship, but tends to represent the emergent concept as endangered, lacking national
agency. Chapter six analyzes the Scottish response to this tropological binary.
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PEREZ, TOSTADO Igor. "Looking for 'powerful friends' : Irish ad English political activity in the Spanish monarchy (1640-1660)." Doctoral thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5935.
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Defence date: 24 September 2004Examining board: Prof. Fernando Bouza Álvarez, Universidad Complutense, Madrid (External supervisor) ; Dr. Declan M. Downey, University College Dublin ; Prof. John H. Elliott, Oriel College, University of Oxford ; Prof. Lawrence Fontaine, EHESS, Paris (Supervisor) ; Prof. Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, European University Institute
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
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MÜLLER, Martin. "Civilization, culture, and race in John Crawfurd's discourses on Southeast Asia : continuities and changes, c.1814-1868." Doctoral thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/28045.
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Defence date: 7 June 2013Examining Board: Professor Sebastian Conrad, Freie Universität (Supervisor) Professor Jorge Flores, EUI Professor Michael Harbsmeier, Roskilde Universitet Dr. Christina Skott, University of Cambridge.
First made available online on 26 February 2015.
In this dissertation I examine the uses of the notions of civilization, race, and culture within a set of British 19th century discourses on especially Southeast Asian societies, their present state and history. Taking the point of departure in John Crawfurd's (1783-1868) publications, it contains a study of the many debates on economic, ethnological, historical, and linguistic issues in which he participated throughout six decades and to which he contributed significantly. Through this approach I aim at providing a densely contextualized analysis of the colonial, intellectual, political, and socio-cultural aspects of Crawfurd et al's knowledge production, its routes of transmission, receptions, and appropriations. The analytic focus is directed at the evaluative-descriptive qualities attributed to the terms civilization, race, and culture, and immanent in the concepts they refer to; on the surface claiming to be primarily descriptive, they nonetheless were normatively cogent in their inherent hierarchal and classificatory structures, as well as in providing a theoretical template delineating the naturalized historical trajectories. Arguing that the notions of civilization, race and culture were pivotal key concepts in this colonial knowledge production, I chart the intertwined dynamics between these notions / both in their conceptual framings and contextualized uses. During this quest I endeavour to demonstrate the interpretive primacy of the concept of civilization throughout the entire period, even though racial concerns clearly were on the ascendancy and by the 1860s constituted the major theme of discussion and dissent. Common to all the analysed discourses is that they were hinged upon these three fundamental notions and their ability to address the universal as well as the particular, their capacity to encompass the past, present and future within one interpretive framework, and not at least their provision of a conceptual common ground which also, however, facilitated the possibilities of fundamental dissent within the actual interpretations.
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HEINLEIN, Frank. "Britain and the Empire-Commonwealth, 1945-63 : a metropolitan perspective." Doctoral thesis, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5833.
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Defence date: 3 June 1999Examining Board: Kirti Chaudhuri, European University Institute (supervisor) ; Prof. Robert Holland, Institute for Commonwealth Studies London (co-supervisor) ; Prof. Bo Stråth, European University Institute ; Prof. Clemens Wurm, Humboldt-Universität Berlin
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
Examine the views of the Empire and Commonwealth held by British policy makers during the two decades after World War II, arguing that the institutional framework of the formal and informal empire and the Commonwealth was considered necessary and useful to promote British interests.
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Daniels, Barbara A. "Diplomacy and its discontents : nationalism, colonialism, imperialism and the Cyprus problem (1945-1960)." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/3130.
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Forest, Timothy Steven 1976. "Kith but not kin : the Highland Scots, imperial resettlement, and the negotiating of identity on the frontiers of the British Empire in the interwar years." 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/18355.
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Based on archival work in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Australia, my dissertation expands the traditional purview of diplomatic history into the international dimensions of the social and cultural realms. My study treats doomed attempts to reconstruct previously-held notions of hierarchy and deference as encapsulated in the Empire Settlement Act (ESA) in the wake of the dramatic changes to the world order resulting from World War I. To counter the emergence of Japan as a world power, under the auspices of the ESA, British Columbia and Western Australia, the two most distant outposts of the “white” British Empire in the Pacific, imported poor Celtic farmers and militiamen from northern Scotland in an attempt to retain their “British” identity, which they felt was threatened by Japan on the one hand, the Japanese in their midst on another, and local “nationalisms” on a third. This dissertation argues that such schemes were undermined by the conflicting priorities of Britain and the Dominions, the tensions between laissez-faire and excessive centralized control, the disconnect between government, capital and labor, the valuations of self-help within highly circumscribed situations, the conflict between the themes of rejuvenation and permanent regression, the fight between an idiosyncratic rural ideal and the reality of the urbanized and industrialized world of the twentieth century, and the inconsistent application of supposedly inviolable Social Darwinist ideals. The birth and death of plans to recruit Hebridean crofters to British Columbia and Western Australia in the 1920s reveals a great deal about the fluidity surrounding concepts of identity and security in a very unstable time. The debates surrounding the status of the Hebridean Scots, especially vis-à-vis their British compatriots and the Japanese, are an extreme window through which the much wider dialogues taking place regarding the status of the British Empire both internally and on the global stage, on the changing role of race as the final determinant of one’s identity and status, and the clashes between the Victorian and the modern ways of defining and conceiving of Empire, can be viewed and debated.text
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Cooper, Owen. "A Question of Principle ? : John F. Kennedy’s Relations with France and Britain Re-examined." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1938.
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The policies of John F. Kennedy have been assessed by historians chiefly as evidence of his “idealism” or “pragmatism”, ignoring the fundamental role of American nationalism in Kennedy’s ideas. A firm believer in the American national myth, this belief underpinned the key policy choices of his administration. This work re-examines Kennedy’s relations with key Cold-War allies Britain and France, focusing on his attempts to stop their respective nuclear weapons programs. By returning to the public documents of the administration with fresh questions and sensitivity for the symbols of American nationalism, in, this work demonstrates that nationalism is a key factor in explaining Kennedy’s ideas and actions.
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Drinkwater, Derek. "Sir Harold Nicolson as international theorist." Phd thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148806.
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Kelly, Andrew M. "Reassessing the ANZUS Alliance : strategy and diplomacy between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, 1945-1956." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:36611.
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This thesis critically analyses the development of Australian-New Zealand-American relations from the end of World War II in late 1945 to the end of the 1956 Suez Crisis. Surprisingly the current literature does not demonstrate the magnitude of problems and disagreements that occurred in the trilateral relationship, even after these countries concluded the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. This is at least partly attributable to the tendency in the existing literature to draw on documentary source materials of only one (or at best, two) of the ANZUS signatories. This thesis, in contrast, makes extensive use of Australian, New Zealand, and US archival materials. This approach has resulted in two broad conclusions, neither of which is given due consideration by the existing literature. Firstly, Australia and (particularly) New Zealand fretted about US leadership in the Pacific and what this meant for Britain’s future in the region. Secondly, the United States did not consult closely with its new partners (albeit junior partners) in the Pacific until at least the mid-1950s. This analysis reveals that US policymakers were not only disinclined to share leadership with Australia and New Zealand in the Asia-Pacific, but were in fact unwilling to consult on matters both great and small until at least the mid-1950s. It also reveals that the trans-Tasman countries struggled to cooperate closely, which was mainly due to the difficulties associated with balancing close ties with both the United States and Britain.
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Grossberg, Matthew M. "Yalta, a tripartite negotation to form the post-war world order: planning for the conference, the big three's strategies." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/7978.
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British influence on the diplomacy of WWII, as it relates to postwar planning, is underappreciated. This work explores how the use of astute tactical maneuvering allowed Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden to impact the development of the post-war world in a greater degree than is typically portrayed in the narratives of the war. Detailing how the study of business negotiations can provide new insights into diplomatic history, Yalta exposes Britain’s impact on the creation of the post-war order through analyzing the diplomacy of WWII as a negotiation. To depict WWII post-war planning diplomacy as a negotiation means that the Yalta Conference of 1945 must be the focal point of said diplomacy with all the negotiations either flowing to or from the conference.
This analysis reveals that Britain harnessed the natural momentum of the negotiation process to create bilateral understandings that protected or advanced their interests in ways that should not have been afforded the weakest party in the Grand Alliance. By pursuing solutions to the major wartime issues first and most stridently through the use of age-old British diplomatic tactics, they were able to enter into understandings with another member of the Grand Alliance prior to the tripartite conferences. Creating bilateral understandings with the Americans on the direction of military operations and the Soviets over the European settlement produced the conditions under which the tripartite negotiations transpired. Options available to the excluded party were thus limited, allowing for outcomes that aligned more favorably to British interests.
A synthesis of diplomatic documents, diaries, and memoirs with historical writings as well as research on business and international negotiations brings to life the diplomatic encounters that led to the creation of the post-war order. To provide the reader a basis for analysis of wartime diplomacy, this work is broken down into two parts. Part I focuses on the strategies created for Yalta. Part II (future doctoral dissertation) will use these strategies to evaluate the performances of each party. Combined the two parts expose that British diplomatic maneuverings is an undervalued aspect of wartime diplomacy.