Britain Alone
The Path from Suez to Brexit
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- 209,00 kr
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- 209,00 kr
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A magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain's post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit.
'The fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain's fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.'
DAVID KYNASTON
'An instant classic . . . Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.'
PETER HENNESSEY
Award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of sixty years - from Suez to Brexit - as Britain struggles to reconcile its waning power with its past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a magisterial and deeply perceptive history of our nation and how we arrived at the state we are in.
'Commanding . . . Rarely if ever, in the history of the British state since 1707, has one half of Britain's ruling elite committed an act of policy viewed with such absolute contempt by the other half; and rarely has that contempt been expressed with such elegance, such fluency, and such a devastating wealth of supporting detail, as in this mighty survey.' SCOTSMAN
'Profoundly knowledgeable.' CHRIS PATTEN
'Compelling.' LAWRENCE FREEDMAN
'A fascinating history.' IRISH TIMES
'A magnificent, exhilarating book' PROSPECT
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A diminished U.K. has been too standoffish toward Europe and too subservient to the U.S., argues this probing study of post-WWII British foreign policy. Financial Times journalist Stephens (Politics and the Pound) explores Britain's uneasy, decades-long adjustment to the loss of its empire and global power, exemplified by the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, during which the British military, along with French and Israeli forces, tried to reoccupy the canal after Egypt nationalized it; the Brits retreated when a disapproving President Eisenhower cut off financing and oil. In response, Britain shored up its "special relationship" with the U.S., which led to Margaret Thatcher's cooperation with Ronald Reagan's anti-communist policies and Tony Blair's ill-advised participation in the Iraq War, while also seeking to re-energize the country's economy and geopolitical clout by joining the European Union, a project that was undermined by nationalist and imperial nostalgia. Delivering a caustic brief against Brexit, Stephens argues that the vote was rooted in "insecurity" and "dog-whistle racism" and will leave Britain economically weaker and "marooned." Buttressed by Stephens's firm grasp of parliamentary politics and elegant prose, this erudite yet accessible history uncovers the agonizing trade-offs that flow from simplistic economic and political nostrums. Photos.
