Book Review: Imperial Democracy
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700214 |
| Author | Richard W. Van Alstyne |
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
168
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
ized,
and
often uncoordinated
nature
of
American
governmental
pro-
cesses,
and
the
difficulties
of
adapting
them
to
the
role
of
leadership
of
the
West.
A
further
chapter,
"The
Commonwealth",
addressed
particularly
to
Americans,
examines
the
difficulties
of
Britain
as
the
centre
of
a
multi-racial
and
widely
dispersed
Commonwealth,
each
of
whose
members
has
pronounced
regional
interests,
and
some of
whom
follow
policies
of
non-alignment.
Although
common
dangers
and
the
necessity
of
preserving
peace
by
power
have
compelled co-operation
in
world
affairs
since
the
War,
there
have
been
numerous issues
on
which
British
and
American
policies
have
diverged,
notably,
on
Korea,
Indo-China,
the
Chinese
off-shore
islands,
and, above
all,
on
Suez.
In
his
account
of
the
Suez
crisis
Mr.
Gelber
perhaps
gives
undue
weight
to
Sir
Anthony
Eden's
apologia,
but
there
can
be no
quarrel
with
his
stricture
that
the
split,
where-
ever the
responsibility lay,
gravely
threatened
the
partnership,
or
with
his
lament
that
opportunity
was
not
taken
to
settle
the
Suez
ques-
tion
so
as
to
guarantee
the
rights
of
states
other
than
Egypt,
notably
those
of
Israel.
Clearly
the
interests
of
the
world
community
in
the
Suez
went
by
default.
The
book
was
obviously
written
before
Britain
had
seriously
began
to
consider
membership
in
the
Common
Market.
Mr.
Gelber
seems
to assume
such
a
move
unlikely;
he
concludes
that
member-
ship
in a
politically
and
economically
integrated
Western
Europe,
as
the
Rome
Treaty
contemplates,
would
gravely
weaken
the
position
of
Britain
as
a
world power, and
thereby
lessen
her
weight
in
the
Anglo-
American
partnership.
But
Britain
seems
to
have
concluded
that
she
has
profoundly
important
regional
interests
in
an integrated
Western
Europe,
for
which
the
present
Commonwealth association
and
independ-
ence
from
Europe afford
inadequate
compensation,
and
U.S.
support
for
this
change
in
direction
of
British
policy
indicates
that
the
United
States
rates
the
Commonwealth
association
as of
less
importance
for maintain-
ing
a
world balance
of
power
than
a
stronger
Western
Europe
which
British
membership
therein
should
assure.
Mr.
Geiber
is
to
be
congratulated
on
a
profoundly
significant
book,
which deserves
to be
widely
read
on
both
sides
of
the
Atlantic.
It
is
perhaps
regrettable
that
he
writes
in a
rather
luxuriant
style,
which
many
readers
will
find
difficult.
But
the
book
is
well
worth
the hours
of
study
which
a
careful
reading entails.
The
reviewer
has
not
dis-
covered
any
other
book
which
examines
the
problems
of
Anglo-American
co-operation
in
the
atomic age
as
exhaustively
or
with
such
historical
insight.
Carleton
University
R.
A.
MACKAY
IMPERIAL
DEMOCRACY.
The Emergence
of
America as
a
Great
Power.
By
Ernest
R.
May.
1961.
(New
York:
Harcourt,
Brace
&
World
Inc.
Toronto:
Longmans,
Green.
vii,
318pp.
$8.50.)
So
many
books
have
been
written
upon
the
theme
of
the
emergence
of
the
United
States
as
a
world
power
that
it
seems
permissible
to
ask
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