Survey of International Affairs 1939-1946. America, Britain, and Russia: Their Co-operation and Conflict, 1941-1946

Of all the volumes of the Survey of International Affairs covering the period of the war this is of greatest current interest. Tracing the rise and fall of the Grand Alliance from Pearl Harbor to the end of 1946, it undertakes to establish the links between the Second World War and the Cold War. Although the narrative--based wholly on published materials, especially the memoirs of the statesmen involved--is largely familiar, the author, an American historian, has done a commendable job of putting the story in perspective. Cautious in his interpretations, he is struck by a coalition's need for enemies to hold it together--a need which applied only somewhat less to the Anglo-American than to the Soviet-Western relationship.