Unlikely Allies: Britain, America and the Victorian Origins of the Special Relationship

When people speak of the special relationship between the two English—speaking peoples on either side of the Atlantic, they are talking of a phenomenon not much older than Britain's 1904 entente cordial with France. The very term 'English—speaking peoples' most probably has no earlier pedigree than William Gladstone. For much of the nineteenth—century, Britain and the United States were imperial rivals in the scramble for North America, and their often difficult relationship directly reflec...