Churchill, Roosevelt and India: Propaganda during World War II

摘要

In Churchill, Roosevelt and India, Auriol Weigold has produced a detailed diplomatic history of a little-known episode in Britain's propaganda strategy during World War II. Unlike many other accounts of the period, Weigold, does not concentrate on the overt propaganda battles with Nazi Germany or in the Far East, but, instead, uncovers an intricate series of encounters between Britain and her closest ally, the United States. At the heart of these encounters were the issues of colonialism and Britain's Indian Empire, while the 'prize', according to Weigold, was "the support of President Roosevelt and American public opinion for maintaining the status quo in India" (p. 2). In the context of wartime and late-imperial geopolitics this was a significant diplomatic ambition, and one that invites critical academic attention.