Edited by Priscilla Roberts
Department of History, University of Hong Kong

[2010]

ISBN 978-90-8979-034-7 hardbound (0 pages)

List price EURO 75 / US$ 95

History of International Relations, Diplomacy and Intelligence, 13 (History of International Relations Library, 13)


About this book

For the first four decades of the twentieth century Philip Kerr, the Eleventh Marquess of Lothian, hovered on the fringes of power in Britain. As a commentator on public affairs, private secretary to Liberal prime minister David Lloyd George, secretary to the Rhodes Trust, Liberal peer, and ambassador to the United States at the beginning of World War II, Lothian's greatest interest was in preserving and strengthening the British Empire and building close bonds with the United States. This international collection of essays by seven scholars explores Lothian's impact on Anglo-American relations and his role, behind the scenes and as a government official, in forging what would eventually become known as the "special relationship."


Table of Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION The Making of an Atlanticist: Philip Kerr, 1882-1921
Priscilla Roberts

CHAPTER ONE Lord Lothian, Russia, and Ideas for a New International Order, 1916-1922
Keith Neilson

CHAPTER TWO Philip Kerr, the Irish Question, and Anglo-American Relations, 1916-1921
Melanie Sayers

CHAPTER THREE The Interwar Philip Lothian
Priscilla Roberts

CHAPTER FOUR Lord Lothian, the Far East, and Anglo-American Strategic Relations, 1934-1941
Greg Kennedy

CHAPTER FIVE Lord Lothian’s Ambassadorship in Washington August 1939-December 1940
J. Simon Rofe

CHAPTER SIX Creating a Sense of Criticality: ‘Lothian’s Method’ and the Evolution of U.S. Wartime Aid to Britain
Gavin Bailey

CHAPTER SEVEN Lothian and the Problem of Relative Decline
David P. Billington, Jr.

CONCLUSION The Final Stage
Priscilla Roberts

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INFORMATION ON CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX

About the Author(s)/Editor(s)

Priscilla Roberts, Ph.D. (1981) in History, King's College, Cambridge, is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong. She has published extensively on twentieth-century international history and Anglo-American diplomacy.

David P. Billington, Jr., Ph.D. (1995) in History, University of Texas at Austin. is an independent scholar. His books include Lothian: Philip Kerr and the Quest for World Order (2006).

Greg Kennedy, Ph.D. (1998) in History, University of Albera, is Professor of Strategic Foreign Policy at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London. He has written extensively on strategic foreign policy issues, diplomacy, and intelligence, including Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the Far East, 1933-1939 (2002).

Keith Neilson is a professor in the History Department of the Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He has written extensively on British strategic foreign policy, particularly with regard to Russia and the Soviet Union.

Gavin Bailey is a research student at Dundee University, completing a Ph.D. thesis on Anglo-American aviation supply collaboration during the Second World War. He has a particular interest in locating technically-informed military history within the broader context of diplomatic and economic statecraft.

J. Simon Rofe is a lecturer in the Centre for American Studies in the Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Leicester. His research interests focus on twentieth-century U.S. foreign relations and diplomacy. Amongst his most recent publications is Franklin Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy and the Welles Mission (2007).

Melanie Sayers is finishing her Ph.D.thesis at the University of Edinburgh. This will explore the involvement of Philip Kerr in the Irish problem, particularly between the years 1916-1921, and his influence on the settlement finally reached.