The US "Culture Wars" and the Anglo-American Special Relationship

This book discusses culture and the origins of the Anglo-American special relationship (the AASR). The bitter dispute between ethnic groups in the US from 191417a period of time characterized as the culture warslaid the groundwork both for US intervention in the European balance of power in 1917 and for the creation of what would eventually become a lasting Anglo-American alliance. Specifically, the vigorous assault on English civilization launched by two large ethnic groups in America (the Irish-Americans and the German-Americans) had the unintended effect of causing America's demographic majority at the time (the English-descended Americans) to regard the prospect of an Anglo-American alliance in an entirely new manner. The author contemplates why the Anglo-American great rapprochement of 1898 failed to generate the desired Anglo-Saxon alliance in Britain, and in so doing features theoretically informed inquiries into debates surrounding both the origins of the war in 1914 and the origins of the American intervention decision nearly three years later.

Contributes to our understanding of the construction of the AASR as not simply a function of geopolitical developments but what allowed the possibility of an Anglo-American alliance Approaches the topic of US intervention as an ontological-security issue that acted as an important factor in the origins of the Anglo-American security community Examines the role of Irish- and German-Americans in influencing public opinion of US intervention and later alliance with Great Britain

Autorentext
David G. Haglund is Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, Canada. His research focuses on transatlantic security and Canadian and American international security policy.

Inhalt

1. Identity, Culture Wars, and the Origins of the Anglo-American Special Relationship: A Huntingtonian Prelude.- 2. The Puzzle of the Missing Anglo-American Alliance: 1914 and All That.- 3. April 1917 Revisited: The Debate over the War's Spread to America.- 4. America's Missing Diaspora: The Hawthornian Majority and Anglo-American Relations.- 5. The German- and Irish-American Challengers to Hawthornian Identity.- 6. Getting Their English Up: The Culture Wars and the Ending of American Neutrality, 1914-17.