ATLANTIC ARCHIVE: UK-US Relations in an Age of Global War 1939-1945
Project updates
The Atlantic Archive blog has been launched. It includes detailed accounts of topics in the archive that highlight UK-US relations during WWII, along with musings on the various actors involved in making UK foreign policy.
Rationale
The ATLANTIC ARCHIVE: UK-US Relations in an Age of Global War 1939-1945 project at the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) aims to create and sustain a free online database of digitised British government reports and newspapers discussing the United States during WWII (1939-1945). Both elements are essential ingredients for enabling researchers and teachers (secondary to higher education) to establish a detailed understanding of British opinions towards the US within the political, economic and social fields. The government reports, for example, include British Embassy reports on American and British claims for sovereignty over Pacific islands such as Canton and Enderbury. The newspaper collection includes articles from the Labour oriented pro-working class and trade-union Daily Herald and the Liberal-supporting News Chronicle.
Britain’s relationship with the United States changed fundamentally in the first half of the twentieth century, and the period 1939 to 1945 was particularly significant in this transformation. Britain was overtaken by the United States as the world’s foremost economic power, it became dependent on the US to achieve its foreign policy goals of maintaining the balance-of-power in Europe and its colonial empire abroad, and surrendered ‘English’ cultural hegemony to the US as Hollywood films, jazz and other cultural forms developed a global brand and appeal.
The government and newspaper documents provide the detail of this trans-Atlantic relationship. These documents will allow scholars to investigate whether British opinions of the US were informed and educated, or rooted in ‘Old World’ perspectives; how UK government departments and personnel, along with newspapers and journals, portrayed the US in relationship to their own domestic or partisan positions; and how common economic and foreign policy problems were understood by Britain.
If you are interested in this project, have any suggestions on what government documents or newspapers should be included, or have questions, please contact Matthew Hill.
