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Bitter Rehearsal British and American Planning for a Post-War West Indies

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Charlie Whitham

Book Code: C7487

ISBN: 0-275-97487-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97487-9

DOI:

264 pages, maps

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 12/30/2002

List Price: $105.00 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)

Availability: Out of stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: International History

Awards:

Academia Academic Essentials - 20th Century History

Reviews:

[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 March 2004

Description: 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.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Broken Show Window: The West Indian Risings and their Aftermath, 1938-1940
Securing the Caribbean: The Establishment of United States Bases in the British West Indies, September 1940-March 1941
Beyond Security: The Forming of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, April 1941-March 1942
With Bread or Bullets: The Caribbean Food Crisis, the Maintenance of Order and the Sugar Question, March-December 1942
The Search for Principles: The London Conversations, December 1942
Unfinished Business: Divergent Paths and Broken Promises, January 1943-March 1944
The Birth of Programme: the First West Indian Conference, March-October 1944
Under the Microscope: The Barbados Recommendations and American Economic Foreign Policy, July 1944-January 1945
Stand-Off: Imperial Policy and the Joint Statement, January-July 1945
A Bitter Rehearsal? Epilogue and Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 2002070909

LCC Class: D754

Dewey Class: 940


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