Britain, France and the Entente Cordiale Since 1904


Book Description

This collection gathers many of the best-known names in the field of Anglo-French relations and provides an authoritative survey of the field. Starting with the crucial period of the First World War and ending with the equally complex question of the second Iraq War, the study has an emphasis on British perceptions of the Entente.







Je T’Aime... Moi Non Plus


Book Description

A series of limiting definitions have tended to delineate the Franco-British cinematic relationship. As this collection of essays reveals, there is much more to it than simple oppositions between British critical esteem for the films of France and French dismissal of ‘le cinéma British’, or the success of Ken Loach et al. at the French box office and the relative dearth of French movies on British screens. In fact, there has long been a rich and productive dialogue between these two cultures in which both their clear differences and their shared concerns have played a vital role. This book provides an overview of the history of these relations from the early days of sound cinema to the present day. The chapters, written by leading experts in the history of French, British and European cinema, provide insights into relations between French and British cinematic cultures at the level of production, exhibition and distribution, reception, representation and personnel. The book features a diverse range of studies, including: the exhibition of French cinema in Britain in the 1930s, contemporary ‘extreme’ French cinema, stars such as Annabella, David Niven and Jane Birkin and the French Resistance on British screens.




British, French and American Relations on the Western Front, 1914–1918


Book Description

This book provides a thorough examination of the relations between the men in the British, French and American armies on the Western Front of the First World War. The Allied victory in 1918 was built on the backs of British, French, and American soldiers who joined together to fight for a common cause. Using the diaries, records, and letters of these men, Chris Kempshall shows how these soldiers interacted with each other during four years of war. The British army that arrived in France in 1914 became isolated from their French allies and unable to coordinate with them. By 1916, Britain’s professional soldiers were replaced by civilians who learned to love their French ally, who reached out to them in friendship. At the end of the war the introduction of American soldiers caused hope and conflict before perceived British failures brought the alliance to the brink of collapse. Final cooperation between these three nations saw them victorious.




France and Britain, 1900-1940


Book Description

The first of a two volume study, which will analyse the complex relationship between Britain and France in the twentieth century: a relationship which has been crucial to European politics and to both World Wars.This volume (fully self-contained) runs from the period of intense imperial rivalry at the turn of the century to the Fall of France. Philip Bell discusses diplomatic, economic and military policy, combining absorbing narrative with revealing commentary about the two countries.




1000 Years of Annoying the French


Book Description

The author of A Year in the Merde and Talk to the Snail offers a highly biased and hilarious view of French history in this international bestseller. Things have been just a little awkward between Britain and France ever since the Norman invasion in 1066. Fortunately—after years of humorously chronicling the vast cultural gap between the two countries—author Stephen Clarke is perfectly positioned to investigate the historical origins of their occasionally hostile and perpetually entertaining pas de deux. Clarke sets the record straight, documenting how French braggarts and cheats have stolen credit rightfully due their neighbors across the Channel while blaming their own numerous gaffes and failures on those same innocent Brits for the past thousand years. Deeply researched and written with the same sly wit that made A Year in the Merde a comic hit, this lighthearted trip through the past millennium debunks the notion that the Battle of Hastings was a French victory (William the Conqueror was really a Norman who hated the French) and pooh-poohs French outrage over Britain’s murder of Joan of Arc (it was the French who executed her for wearing trousers). He also takes the air out of overblown Gallic claims, challenging the provenance of everything from champagne to the guillotine to prove that the French would be nowhere without British ingenuity. Brits and Anglophiles of every national origin will devour Clarke’s decidedly biased accounts of British triumph and French ignominy. But 1000 Years of Annoying the French will also draw chuckles from good-humored Francophiles as well as “anyone who’s ever encountered a snooty Parisian waiter or found themselves driving on the Boulevard Périphérique during August” (The Daily Mail). A bestseller in Britain, this is an entertaining look at history that fans of Sarah Vowell are sure to enjoy, from the author the San Francisco Chronicle has called “the anti-Mayle . . . acerbic, insulting, un-PC, and mostly hilarious.”




The Shadow of the Past


Book Description

In The Shadow of the Past, Gregory D. Miller examines the role that reputation plays in international politics, emphasizing the importance of reliability-confidence that, based on past political actions, a country will make good on its promises-in the formation of military alliances. Challenging recent scholarship that focuses on the importance of credibility-a state's reputation for following through on its threats-Miller finds that reliable states have much greater freedom in forming alliances than those that invest resources in building military force but then use it inconsistently. To explore the formation and maintenance of alliances based on reputation, Miller draws on insights from both political science and business theory to track the evolution of great power relations before the First World War. He starts with the British decision to abandon "splendid isolation" in 1900 and examines three crises--the First Moroccan Crisis (1905-6), the Bosnia-Herzegovina Crisis (1908-9), and the Agadir Crisis (1911)-leading up to the war. He determines that states with a reputation for being a reliable ally have an easier time finding other reliable allies, and have greater autonomy within their alliances, than do states with a reputation for unreliability. Further, a history of reliability carries long-term benefits, as states tend not to lose allies even when their reputation declines.




Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War"


Book Description

Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen– Winston Churchill first among them–the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations. Among the British and Churchillian errors were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France • The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that mutilated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler • Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo-Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest • The greatest mistake in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939, ensuring the Second World War Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “the Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.




Dangerous Alliances


Book Description

Military alliances drive international politics. They embody conflict and cooperation among states and shape the international political landscape. Despite the profound effect alliances have on the course of international politics, many gaps remain in our understanding of their formation, continuance, and cohesion. In this book, Patricia Weitsman introduces a comprehensive theory that unifies current ideas about alliances and examines the relationship between threat and alliance politics under conditions of both war and peace. Examining military alliances before and during World War I, Weitsman provides a new interpretation of the politics of the great powers of this period. She reveals that states frequently form alliances to keep peace among the allied countries, not simply to counter shared external threats. Though alliances may be perceived by others to present a unified and threatening front, countries often face significant threats from within their own alliances. It is this paradox that underscores Weitsman's theory: although alliances are frequently forged to sustain peace, they may, in fact, increase the prospects of war.




Best of Enemies


Book Description

Republished for the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, this new edition of Best of Enemies gives an entertaining and perceptive overview of Anglo-French relations. Updated to include the Anglo-French disagreements over the second Gulf War, this is an extensively revised edition of a book that was widely praised when it first appeared in 1995. Robert Gibson gives a lucid and lively account of the love-hate relationship between the English and the French that has lasted for more than a thousand years. Richly illustrated with cartoons from both sides of the Channel, this intelligent and well-documented study will appeal to anyone interested in the history of English and French relations. Reviews of the previous edition "Best of Enemies is a thoroughly absorbing - and at times hilarious - study of 800 years of hostilities and misunderstandings between our nations." Tom Hibbert, The Mail on Sunday "Copious quotation plus a pleasingly crisp style combine to make this a very attractive and readable volume. Just the thing to consult en route to the gnte." Michhle Roberts, The Independent "This is a readable and scholarly enhancement of the understanding of our diplomatic and military history over nearly a thousand years." Alan Clark, The Daily Telegraph "[A] highly readable account of Anglo-French relations over the past millennium . the perspectives Gibson offers are welcome and timely." A.C. Grayling, The Financial Times