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- Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning by Kathleen Burk
Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning by Kathleen Burk
Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning by Kathleen Burk
In Old World, New World, Kathleen Burk sets out to tell the whole story of America and Great Britain for the first time. Burk is both a fourth-generation Californian and a distinguished professor of history in London, and in this book, she draws on her unrivaled knowledge of both countries to explore the totality of the relationship -- the politics, economics, culture, and society -- beginning with the first British settlement at Jamestown and continuing through our current alliance in Iraq.
There are two strands to this story. The first is the grand narrative of war, statecraft, and international affairs. Telling the story from both sides, Burk reveals the real motivations for settling North America, the factors that led to Britain's losing the colonies, and the reason why hawks in Congress took the two countries to war again in 1812. She examines the crucial moments in America's rise to dominance -- from Benjamin Franklin's contentious negotiations with the British after the Revolutionary War to the Monroe Doctrine, from the clash over Manifest Destiny to the sharp exchanges between Franklin Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain in the period before America entered World War II -- as well as the enmities and sympathies, the confusions and compromises that were born along the way. Burk argues that the modern relationship began to be forged when England felt increasingly threatened internationally and the United States acquired its colonies as a result of the Spanish-American War; the alliance was sealed during two world wars, which weakened Britain and put her in America's debt. Since 1945, the world has watched and wondered at the close bonds of the two countries' leaders: Kennedy and Macmillan, Reagan and Thatcher, Bush and Blair.
The story's second strand s equally riveting. Displaying a breathtaking command of her subject, Burk focuses on more intimate facets of the Anglo-American relationship: religious, cultural, and even romantic. She shows how public opinion was shaped by British and American writers -- Charles Dickens, Fanny Trollope, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson -- who ventured abroad and wrote books about their experiences that were best sellers in both countries. Social reformers in England worked with like-minded colleagues in the United States to abolish slavery and win rights for women and the working class. And British aristocrats shocked polite society by marrying wealthy but untitled American women like Jennie Jerome and Wallis Warfield Simpson (who would become Lady Randolph Churchill and the Duchess of Windsor, respectively.
The result is a lively and unprecedented book. At once sweeping in scope and meticulous in detail, it is a vivid, absorbing, and surprising story of one of the longest and most fascinating international relationships in modern history.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, HARDCOVER, 1ST EDITION, 1ST PRINTING, 2007.
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.