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The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: The Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47
 
 
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The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: The Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47 (Paperback)

by Peter Clarke (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (31 Jul 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141020059
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141020051
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 118,335 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Sunday Telegraph, Piers Brendon
'a brilliant popular history...he tells [the story] with such wit, verve and scholarly insight' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Irish Times, Richard Aldous
'There are few historians writing today who are more elegant and lucid than Clarke ... a triumph of stylish, thought-provoking history' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Illuminating Insight, 31 May 2009
By Canada Dry (Suffolk, England) - See all my reviews
Peter Clarke's revealing study of the impact of the last years of the Second World War on the British Empire is considerably enhanced by drawing on the diaries of major participants to put the reader up close and personal to the events unfolding. A most readable style and structure maintains interest in a history which might otherwhise be considered all too well known and rather dry. And sobering reading it is too for any Briton born in the shadow of the war and brought up on its mythology. It casts a cold new light on the "special relationship" and resonates today with American and British differences in perceptions of the war, from Hollywood's airbrushing out of British feats of arms to Her Majesty The Queen's exclusion from this year's D-Day memorial celebrations. "Britain Betrayed" would be an appropriate, if somewhat emotional, sub-title for this book, as throughout its pages the sense of injustice and ingratitude rises towards the climax of the jewel returned from the crown. Even that act of benevolent realism has been twisted and flung into Britain's face by her detractors, usually conveniently ignoring the hypocricy of their own historical situations.

Clem Attlee recognised the denouement more clearly than Churchill, who was still impassioned with the rhetoric of Empire, and at Potsdam philosophically referred to "the way the course of the war had dealt the cards". The shadow of decline is a long one, stretching beyond the end of Churchill's Iron Curtain to more modern events in Iraq and Afghanistan and the British, long betrayed by forces within and without the country, have yet to find their way.

I read the book and drew new perceptions of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Bradley and began to realise that there were two distinct wars fought between 1939 and 1945. The first, the war for Britain and Western Europe's survival, was fought from 1939 to 1942. The second, which resulted in Britain's destruction as a world power and the oppression of most of Eastern Europe, was fought from 1942 to 1945. Britain survived the Nazis and guaranteed the liberation of Western Europe, only to be destroyed by enemies masquerading as friends. The two emergent superpowers of 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union, who between them thrust Britain into post-war impotence, soon fell out and Eastern Europe had to endure another 40 years before its final liberation. An excellent book. Highly recommended.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Account of the Decline of the British Empire, 19 Feb 2009
By Jimbo (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
In seeking to answer the question of Britain won the Second World War but lost the peace, as evinced by the loss of British Empire, Clarke instead boldly asserts that Britain did not, in fact, win the war. Clarke suggests that the war was won by the Americans, both in terms of the manpower that they provided in the D-Day landings that opened up the second front and led to the defeat of Nazi Germany, but also in the financial support that they gave the Britain through Lend-Lease. Clarke's central thesis is that the terms of Lend-Lease and the associated Atlantic Charter, both negotiated by Churchill on the British side, left Britain in a position where the loss of Empire was inevitable, and not the result of an active policy of "scuttle" as Churchill later claimed.

Clarke dates the end of the British Empire as the date of Indian Independence, and so the last thousand days spans the second world war from late 1944 through to mid-1947. Churchill does not appear as the all-conquering titan that he does in many other accounts. Clarke presents him as a very human-figure, and as he perceptively points out is much the stronger for it. Clarke also draws entertaining portraits of the major players determining British policy during this period and succeeds in pulling together many strands - negotiation between the Big Three, disagreements over the future of Palestine, attempts to create a workable solution in India that would prevent partition - to create a dramatic but insightful narrative.

His central argument though - that the cost of American involvement in the war put Britain in an economic position that made the end of Empire inevitable - is well argued and compelling. Churchill not only lacked the foresight to perceive what the impact of the Lend-Lease terms were, but along with British officials ignored issues they knew would create difficulties in the hope that they would be resolved in Britain's favour at a crunch moment. This is a well-argued book and definitely worth investigation.
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