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The Breakdown of the Grand Alliance and the Origins of the Cold War, 1942-1946

From £40.99

The Breakdown of the Grand Alliance and the Origins of the Cold War, 1942-1946

By: John Kent

From £40.99

This book challenges standard accounts of the Cold War's origins. It focuses on imperial rivalries between Britain, the US, and the Soviet Union, evaluating the responsibilities of all three for the breakdown of wartime cooperation. Uniquely, it treats Britain’s role as crucial.

This book challenges the standard orthodox and neo-revisionist accounts of the origins of the Cold War, which portray the West as containing an expansionist Soviet…

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Author: John Kent ISBN: 1-0364-0595-8 Category: Social Sciences, History, History

This book challenges the standard orthodox and neo-revisionist accounts of the origins of the Cold War, which portray the West as containing an expansionist Soviet Union. Initially showing the importance of all three major wartime leaders attached to cooperation in the post-war international order, the book then focuses on imperial rivalries, particularly between Britain and the Soviet Union in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, but also between the US and the Soviet Union in East Asia.

The book provides a nuanced account, evaluating the responsibilities of the three major Allies for the breakdown of wartime cooperation by covering in detail the issues in Germany, Poland, Romania, Greece, Iran and Egypt. It thereby provides an analysis of specific interests to enable an accurate chronology of leaders’ and foreign ministers’ conferences. Uniquely, it treats Britain’s role as comparatively more important in the alliance’s breakdown and the Cold War’s origins.

John Kent benefited from Scottish higher education at the University of Aberdeen and spent over 25 years working at the London School of Economics, which enabled him, in addition to doing research at the National Archives in London, to conduct research at four Presidential Libraries and the National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland, USA, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC, USA. He was also able to carry out research at les Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Paris and les Archives d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence, both in France, and the Australian National Archives in Canberra. As a Leverhulme-funded British Documents on the End of Empire Project editor, he produced around 1,500 pages of documents on Egypt and the defence of the Middle East 1945-1956, and has written three monographs on British, American and French foreign policy. He also co-authored International Relations since 1945: A Global History with John Young.

Hardback

ISBN: 1-0364-0595-8
ISBN13: 978-1-0364-0595-3
Date of Publication: 2024-10-17

Paperback

ISBN: 1-0364-5404-5
ISBN13: 978-1-0364-5404-3
Date of Publication: 2025-07-23

Ebook

ISBN: 1-0364-0596-6
ISBN13: 978-1-0364-0596-0
Date of Publication: 2025-07-23

Category: Social Sciences, History, History

Pages: 464

Subject Codes:

BIC: HBLW3, HBTW, HBTQ
THEMA: NH(3MPQ), NHTW, NHTQ

Pages: 464

"This fresh – and refreshing – study of the breakdown of relations between the Second World War’s ‘Big Three’, is the fruit of decades of research by its author into both the Cold War and the end of the British Empire. It is striking for its in-depth look at their relations in the last two years of war and the first year of peace, taking an impressively broad perspective on the issues that affected them,"
- John W. Young Professor Emeritus in History, University of Nottingham, UK

Meet The Author

John Kent

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