The Lion and the Eagle: The Interaction of the British and American Empires, 1783-1972

摘要

Today's news headlines suggest the era of the US and UK as great empires is most probably over. UK politics is overheating with Brexit and populism while the US government drives rhetoric of nativism, protectionism and isolationism. Not even the Special Relationship between the two countries can overturn this negative trend. Kathleen Burk is in no way the first person to look at the Special Relationship, but her coverage of it offers fresh perspective on the matter. Her book on the two empires, The Lion and the Eagle: The Interaction of the British and American Empires, 1783-1972, first and foremost suggests that the relationship between these two countries was not always so special. Building on her previous work on the US-UK relationship in Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008), Burk argues that the interaction between the UK and US as empires must be studied to understand global history (p. 8).