Britain and Western Europe, 1945-51: opportunities lost?

Archives are the life-blood of the historical profession. If the opening to research of the British public records for the postwar period has proved anything, it has been this. Since January 1976, when the records for 1945 were made available under the 1967 Public Records Act, an incessant stream of papers, articles and books dealing with the first postwar Labour government has appeared. One of the most notable features to result from this enormous flow of historical scholarship is the reassessment of the British role in the emerging cold war. The American historian Robert Hathaway has coined the expression 'depolarization' to describe this process, and David Reynolds, discussing some of the recent literature, points to 'the European dimension' of the cold war which this literature points to.[1] However, before we address British-West European relations in the period 1945-51, two preliminary questions which have figured in recent literature must be answered. The first concerns the relationship between the Foreign Secretary and his department, between Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office. The second concerns the relationship between Britain and the United States, between junior and senior partner, and the room for manoeuvre that the junior partner enjoyed. Both questions are a necessary part of any analysis of British foreign policy in general, and therefore also of an analysis of the relationship between Britain and Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]