US–European relations from Nixon to Carter (book review)

European Security

Volume 20, Issue 4, 2011

Lukas Hoder - Book Reviews

(Po dlouhém čekání mi v European Security vyšla recenze na jednu pozoruhodnou knihu o historii transatlantických vztahů.)

The strained alliance: US-European relations from Nixon to Carter, edited by Matthias Schulz and Thomas A. Schwartz, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, xiv - 383 pp., $85.00 (hardback), ISBN-13: 978-0-521-89999-4

There was never a golden age in the Atlantic alliance, a time ‘when the United States and Europe cooperated in an atmosphere of complete mutual trust and harmony’ (p. 355). That is the overall idea of the edited volume The strained alliance. Articles assembled in the book, using newly available archival material from both the USA and Western Europe, cover the major transatlantic issues during the long 1970s: ‘growing superpower de ́tente, increasing European integration, and a changing transatlantic environment in financial and monetary structures’ (p. 14). The book is concentrated on European governments’ dealings with the USA, mainly on the Western Germany (around half of the 15 chapters of the book are foremost focused on the German foreign policy or German domestic political developments).

…

Despite of total lack of the IR theory in the book (one exception being a mention of theory in the chapter of Raj Roy), all chapters incite to theoretical thinking about the role of personalities in international politics, about connections between economics and politics as well as about the rules of power in politics. The book offers great amount of material for both case studies on historical aspects of transatlantic relations and stimulating discussions about the probable causes of the next transatlantic crisis.


P.S.: Autorem jedné z kapitol knihy je i Dr. Fabian Hilfrich z The University of Edinburg, kterého jsme na FSS MU mohli vidět během konference o americké zahraniční politice a odkazu Thomase Jeffersona v roce 2009.
P.P.S.: Recenzi pošlu v PDF, pokud bude mít někdo zájem. Kniha myslím na FSS MU zatím není.


Dodatek: Knihovna FSS knihu udajne (brzy?) zakoupi.