Bitter Rehearsal - (International History) by Charlie Witham & Charlie Whitham (Hardcover)

About the Book

Promoted as a means for rectifying the problems of a region in extreme need, the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC) only exposed and exacerbated the underlying antagonisms between Britain and the United States over the economic and political structure of the post-war world. This study places the AACC, formed in 1942, within the context of the Anglo-American wartime special relationship, and examines the political, economic, and security motives at the heart of this unique and little-known collaboration. It exposes the determination of the United States to use exigencies of war to impose its post-war plans upon Britain, and the tenacity of the British to defend even the smallest and least regarded of its possessions regardless of local and international opposition.

The AACC was a battleground of conflicting British and American visions of a new West Indies, and it would thus serve as a rehearsal for key debates that would emerge at the end of the war. For the United States, the AACC was a vehicle for promoting America's broad postwar ambitions in the West Indies; for Britain, it was simply part of the price that had to be paid for American assistance in the war effort. Debates within the AACC over the future of West Indian sugar, the regulation of tariffs and trade, constitutional reform and the expansion of civil aviation mirrored wider British and American differences.

Book Synopsis

Promoted as a means for rectifying the problems of a region in extreme need, the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC) only exposed and exacerbated the underlying antagonisms between Britain and the United States over the economic and political structure of the post-war world. This study places the AACC, formed in 1942, within the context of the Anglo-American wartime special relationship, and examines the political, economic, and security motives at the heart of this unique and little-known collaboration. It exposes the determination of the United States to use exigencies of war to impose its post-war plans upon Britain, and the tenacity of the British to defend even the smallest and least regarded of its possessions regardless of local and international opposition.

The AACC was a battleground of conflicting British and American visions of a new West Indies, and it would thus serve as a rehearsal for key debates that would emerge at the end of the war. For the United States, the AACC was a vehicle for promoting America's broad postwar ambitions in the West Indies; for Britain, it was simply part of the price that had to be paid for American assistance in the war effort. Debates within the AACC over the future of West Indian sugar, the regulation of tariffs and trade, constitutional reform and the expansion of civil aviation mirrored wider British and American differences.

Review Quotes

?[t]his is a fine study. The Caribbean emerges as the site of an Anglo-American morality play in which British colonial interests were challenged by US conceptions of a new world order. The heated debate was only resolved by a mutual recognition that the post-war world needed both US leadership in reconstruction and the continuation of the British Empire to anticipate the creation of a communist one. Whitham's strength is that he is ever mindful of how the wider strategic dimension of the Second World War influenced events in the Carribbean. His work is of interest to any historian of the Second World War, not only to those interested in post-war planning, Anglo-American reations, colonial policy, and the Caribbean itself.?-International History Review

"Ýt¨his is a fine study. The Caribbean emerges as the site of an Anglo-American morality play in which British colonial interests were challenged by US conceptions of a new world order. The heated debate was only resolved by a mutual recognition that the post-war world needed both US leadership in reconstruction and the continuation of the British Empire to anticipate the creation of a communist one. Whitham's strength is that he is ever mindful of how the wider strategic dimension of the Second World War influenced events in the Carribbean. His work is of interest to any historian of the Second World War, not only to those interested in post-war planning, Anglo-American reations, colonial policy, and the Caribbean itself."-International History Review

"[t]his is a fine study. The Caribbean emerges as the site of an Anglo-American morality play in which British colonial interests were challenged by US conceptions of a new world order. The heated debate was only resolved by a mutual recognition that the post-war world needed both US leadership in reconstruction and the continuation of the British Empire to anticipate the creation of a communist one. Whitham's strength is that he is ever mindful of how the wider strategic dimension of the Second World War influenced events in the Carribbean. His work is of interest to any historian of the Second World War, not only to those interested in post-war planning, Anglo-American reations, colonial policy, and the Caribbean itself."-International History Review

About the Author

CHARLIE WHITHAM teaches at Loughborough University.