A British American Voice: Exploring the Transatlantic Connections in American History in Britain

Authors : Inge DORNAN

Pages : 55-69

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Publication Date : 2006-10-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Recent calls to internationalize American history have prompted American history scholars outside the United States to evaluate how their own particular experiences might contribute to this new historiographic framework Vaudagna; Adams; Kroes . My own reflections on the usefulness of this approach to British Americanist scholars and students have encouraged a reconsideration of why and how American history came to be established in Britain’s schools and universities.1 The introduction of American history to the United Kingdom was itself a transatlantic and international enterprise. It was inspired by Britain and America’s shared past as well as present history and a mixture of public, scholarly and political affirmations of a warm and cordial Anglo American relationship. Its emergence was also inseparable from the need in Britain to craft a new identity in the wake of World War II and the demise of its Empire, and the need in America to project and defend its new superpower status abroad in a Cold War climate.
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