Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-1957 - Hardcover

"Riveting . . . Important and engaging . . . Mr. Leebaert . . . emphasizes bitter controversies and disagreements between Britain and America . . . yet in the first half of the book, he argues also that a close relationship existed between two near-heroic figures... Dean Acheson [and] Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, . . . a man of moral integrity with an all-embracing intellect bordering on genius . . . In the second half of the book, there are no heroes." ―Wm. Roger Louis, The Wall Street Journal

"Leebaert's fascinating book is far from just another story of the British empire's recessional . . . Leebaert's argument is that, despite the challenges, in the immediate postwar period, Britain was ready, willing and indeed for a time even able to play the role of . . . global superpower alongside America . . . there's no shortage of vivid accounts of some of the key characters." ―Gerard Baker, The Times (London)

"Full of vignettes and insights about America’s great Oedipal moment, when the little republic grew up and pushed [the UK] aside . . . Leebaert argues persuasively that conventional accounts of the postwar era skip over the crucial, vertiginous moment when Britain was less exhausted than is commonly assumed and the American position was far less assured." ―Robert F. Worth, The New York Review of Books

"Smoothly written and well-sourced . . . This excellent history reflects the quality of the scholarship that Leebaert displayed in his remarkable work The Fifty Year Wound. Recommended for all collections." ―Library Journal (starred)

"A decidedly revisionist narrative brings neglected figures to the forefront while critically reassessing others . . Leebaert’s . . . account puts a different spin on American and British history with an eye to current policy challenges. Besides showing the difficulties of managing empire―especially without professional diplomats and civil servants relying on practical experience rather than academic training―it makes a persuasive case for offshore balancing as a strategy." ―William Anthony Hay, The National Interest

"[Leebaert's] reconstruction of events from 1945 to 1957 . . . draws impressively on many original sources . . . Britain was not the 97-pound weakling of the Charles Atlas muscle-building craze of the time . . . he stresses the countervailing points that made Britain an effective international partner, stiffening a 'jittery' America in looming collisions with the Soviet Union." ―Sir Harold Evans, New York Times Book Review

"Leebaert’s history of the U.S.-British relationship from V-E Day to the aftermath of the 1956 Suez crisis . . . attacks the widespread view that the immediate postwar period saw a smooth handoff of world power from London to Washington . . . he is right to challenge the narrative of a seamless transition―and right, too, that a sentimentalized vision of this history will make it harder for policymakers to deal with the enormous challenges facing the United States in the twenty-first century." ―Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs

"A sturdy exploration of lesser-known aspects of the Cold War, focusing on the rivalry between allies as much as enemies." ―Kirkus

"Grand Improvisation is an elegant work of revisionism that relies on documentary evidence to relentlessly advance its case. The author’s eye for detail, stylistic verve and command of archival records from two continents set him apart from other historians . . . Leebaert’s magisterial book proves that there is still much to learn from [ . . . ] early episodes of the Cold War." ―Ray Takeyh, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy

“A nation in decline that persists in imagining itself indispensable is a menace to itself and to others. So it was with Great Britain after World War II. So too it is with the United States today. With sparkling prose and deft characterizations, Derek Leebaert examines the relationship between those two countries―the one on the way down, the other reaching its zenith―in the first decade of the postwar era. The result is both revealing and immensely instructive. This is historical revisionism of the very best sort.” ―Andrew J. Bacevich, author of America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

“Derek Leebaert is a Cold War historian of the first rank as well as a spellbinding narrator. But his greatest virtue as a scholar and author is a dogged pursuit of what really happened even, or especially, when it contradicts conventional wisdom. Reading this account of how reluctant the British were to relinquish―and Americans to assume―world power after 1945, I found myself nodding repeatedly: ‘Yes, this rings totally true . . . and the endnotes confirm it.’ The foreign policy implications of Grand Improvisation are enormous even today.” ―Walter A. McDougall, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, University of Pennsylvania

“Grand Improvisation is a fascinating and provocative account of Anglo-American relations after the Second World War, rich with revealing details, anecdotes and brilliantly wrought portraits of the key personalities. Lively and entertaining, this book will change the way we look at the immediate post-war years and carries profound lessons for the world today as power once again shifts across the globe.” ―Liaquat Ahamed, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning Lords of Finance