Transatlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction

Transatlantic Relations Since 1945 offers a comprehensive account of transatlantic relations in the second half of the 20th century (extending to the present-day).

The transatlantic relationship has been the bedrock of international relations since the end of World War II. This new textbook will focus on the period since the defeat of Nazi Germany, when the multitude of links between United States and Western Europe were created, extended, and multiplied. Written in an accessible style, it emphasizes transatlantic interactions, and avoids the temptation to focus on either U.S. ‘domination’ or European attempts to ‘resist’ an American effort to subjugate the old continent. That influence has travelled across the Atlantic in both directions is one of the starting points of this text.

Structured chronologically, the book will be built around three key themes:

• Security: From the Cold War to the War on Terror
• Economics: Integration and Competition
• ‘Soft power’ and Transatlantic Relations.

This book will be of great interest to students of transatlantic relations, NATO, US Foreign Policy, Cold War History, European History and IR/International history.

Jussi M. Hanhimaki is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies (GIIS), Geneva. He is author/co-author of five books and won the 2002 Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Benedikt Schoenborn is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tampere, Finland, and a former Fellow of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He is the author of various articles on Western Europe in the Cold War and of the prize-winning book La mésentente apprivoisée: de Gaulle et les Allemands (2007).

Barbara Zanchetta is a Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, focusing on US foreign policy, transatlantic relations and 'out of area' issues. She is completing a book titled From Dominance to Leadership: The Transformation of American Power in the 1970s.