British and American Influence in Post-War Thailand

1963 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Frank C. Darling
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Administrative Development ◽  
Post War ◽  
Independent Country

From the opening of Thailand (Siam) to the West in the middle of the nineteenth century until World War II the dominant European influence in thissmall independent country was that exerted by Great Britain. Although other Europeans played important roles in the technological and administrative development of Thailand, the British were able to retain a pre-eminent position in the affairs of the country. The bulk of Thailand's rice trade was with the British empire, and a British expert was traditionally employed by the Thai absolute monarchs as their leading financial adviser. The British likewise played a vital role in preventing the French from seizing larger territories in Thailand as these two leading colonial powers clashed in Southeast Asia in the 1890's. An agreement between Great Britain and France in 1896 enabled Thailand to retain its national independence, and until World War II Thailand served as a buffer state between the British colonialists in Burma and the French colons in Indochina.

scholarly journals Towards Spheres of Influence and the End of the «Balkan Polyphony»: Southeast Europe in the Strategic Calculations of Great Britain at the Final Stage of World War II

2020 ◽  
pp. 339-355
Author(s):  
Olga I. Aganson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Final Stage ◽  
World Order ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
World War ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Post War

The research analyzes Britain’s approaches to the post-war arrangement of the political space of Southeastern Europe at the final stage of World War II. In an effort to maintain its status as a global power, Great Britain took an active part in developing the foundations of a new world order. British strategic planning paid special attention to the Balkan region, where British interests traditionally clashed with the Russian/Soviet ones. The author tries to trace the elements of continuity and variability in British policy in the Balkans. This will enable us to get a more nuanced understanding of the new balance of forces in the region, one of the main manifestations of which was the extinction of the «Balkan polyphony».

scholarly journals Communism versus Zionism: The Comintern, Yishuvism, and the Palestine Communist Party

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Franzéén
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
White Paper ◽  
World War ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
Party Line ◽  
Post War ◽  
Two Bodies

This article discusses how the official communist position on the Zionist project in Palestine went from hostile condemnation in the early 1920s to wary support after World War II. In so doing, it focuses on the ideological struggle between the traditional party line and ““Yishuvism,”” a theory that sought to reconcile Zionist and communist ideas, as it played out in the two bodies most closely involved in shaping Comintern policy on Palestine (the Palestine Communist Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain). In following the tortured justifications for evolving positions, the author identifies the key actors shaping the debate and turning points impacting it, especially the 1936––39 Arab Revolt, Britain's 1939 White Paper, and the wartime fight against fascism. The author contends that an important reason for the USSR's post-war about-face on Palestine was the success of the Yishuvist ideological campaign.

Conclusion

2014 ◽  
pp. 123-125
Author(s):  
Gerard L. Weinberg
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
World War ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War

The ‘Conclusion’ shows how the world was changed forever by World War II, during which around sixty million people had been killed, the majority of them civilians. There were huge losses in the Soviet Union and China, but the country most damaged was Poland. Massive destruction and economic dislocation characterized much of Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and portions of North Africa. The war and its ending also brought about enormous population movements. Countries faced massive reconstruction, the defeated had reparations to pay, and war criminals had to be dealt with. The war also provided new developments in technology and medicine, which transformed post-war life.

Sport popolare italiano e Arbeitersport tedesco-occidentale (1945-1950)

2009 ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Leo Goretti
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Post War

- Focuses on the sport policies of the Italian Communist Party and the West German Social Democratic Party in the post-war period. Whereas the Pci leadership decided to build up a flanking sports association (the Unione Italiana Sport Popolare, established in 1948), the Spd abandoned the pre-Nazi tradition of the Arbeitersport (workers' sport). Based on a research undertaken in the archives of the two parties, the article analyses their sport policies in a comparative perspective. Particular attention is paid to the legacy of the Nazi and Fascist regimes and the different political contexts in the two countries after World War II.Keywords: Italian Communist Party, West German Social Democratic Party, Sport, Labour Movement, Leisure.Parole chiave: Partito comunista italiano, Partito socialdemocratico tedesco-occidentale, sport, movimento operaio, tempo libero.

Lessons of World War II and Strategic Planning of the Big Three (1945–1949)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-84
Author(s):  
I. E. Magadeev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Far East ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War

The paper examines how military and political leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain assessed in the first post-war years and in the face of emerging bipolar world order the lessons of World War II, how the latter influenced their strategic planning and forecasts with the emergence of nuclear weapons. The author outlines the key features of this period (1945–1949), including still fresh memories of the unprecedented destruction and losses of the past war, the US ‘nuclear monopoly’, and the absence of a system for nuclear deterrence. The paper provides a systematic comparison of lessons from the past war, learnt by the Soviet, the US and British establishment, identifies similarities and differences between them. The author concludes that WWII was perceived by the political and military leaders of that time as a model of the eventual ‘great war’ in the future, which almost certainly would be ‘total’ and ‘global’ in scope and would demand both thorough preparations during the peacetime and the militarization of civil life. Indeed, the experience of WWII had greatly influenced the strategic and operational planning in the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in 1945–1949. Moscow prepared to face the potential aggression on its Western borders or in the Far East in order to avoid the mistakes of 1941. In Washington the decisionmakers acknowledged the Soviet superiority in conventional weapons and didn’t exclude the possibility that the Soviet Army could quickly establish control over the Western Europe and that the US military would have to retake it in a ‘new Operation Overlord’. The pessimistic outlook of the ‘defense of the Rhine’ was also shared in London, and the British military planned to evacuate the troops to the British Isles (‘shadow of Dunkirk’) and to focus on strategic bombing of the USSR and its allies. Even the appearance of nuclear weapons, that would dramatically alter the strategic context in the following years, played a relatively minor role in 1945–1949. The author concludes that the shadow of World War II and its lessons had a long-lasting effect on the post-war international relations.

scholarly journals Leaders discussion of the USSR, USA and Great Britain about the place and time of the trilateral meeting in 1943

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-34
Author(s):  
M. S. Sukhanov ◽  
A. N. Garashchenkova
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World Order ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
World War ◽  
Organizational Aspect ◽  
Objective Understanding ◽  
Post War ◽  
Political Decisions

The article is devoted to the study of the process of preparation of the Tehran conference of leaders of the USSR, USA and Great Britain, held in the Iranian capital from November 28 to December 1, 1943. Based on the analysis of the trilateral correspondence of I.V. Stalin, F.D. Roosevelt and W. Churchill, the authors determine the objectives of the meeting and indicate the positions of the parties regarding the time and place of its holding. It is proved that each of the leaders wanted to organize a conference on the territory under their control, but the desire to resolve controversial issues prevailed over political ambitions, which was a decisive factor in rallying the allies of World War II to fight the aggressors. The novelty of the study is due to the lack of study in the domestic historiography of the organizational aspect of the Tehran conference, which in turn is extremely important for an objective understanding of how the conditions favorable for the adoption of crucial military and political decisions of the time and the development of initial projects of the post-war world order were achieved.

Memory as Public Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Kathrin Bachleitner
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
West Germany ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Identity ◽  
Critical Situation ◽  
Process Memory ◽  
Post War

This chapter places collective memory at the basis of a country’s identity and posits that memory returns from the international sphere to the domestic environment. In the course of this process, memory moves from being an official strategy to becoming part of the wider public identity. Memory’s impact thus transforms from a direct, active opportunity to an indirect, passive constraint for policymakers. Notably, as identity, collective memory is unexamined, and assumed to underwrite the mindset of a country’s public and its representatives. To illustrate this transformation, this chapter looks to the cases of West Germany and Austria in the second post-war decade. The ‘critical situation’ for analysis arrived in 1961 in the form of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. The West German and Austrian reactions to the trial demonstrate that by the early 1960s these countries had come to view their role in World War II through the lens of a pre-existing national narrative in almost entirely unexamined ways.

Singapore: Its Growth as an Entrepot Port, 1819–1941

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wong Lin Ken
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
World War ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Post War ◽  
Point Of Reference

Once the premier port in colonial Southeast Asia and one of the foremost in the British Empire, Singapore now ranks as the world's fourth busiest port, tonnagewise, with the second highest per capita G.D.P. in Asia. Its post-war achievements rest on solid historical advantages. A broad historical survey of its commercial growth before World War II is therefore not amiss: the more so, as there has been no such panoramic presentation before. With no natural resources, Singapore's economic growth was almost synonymous with its foreign trade. In most historical works, especially those written before World War II, Singapore has been treated as an integral part of the Straits Settlements or British Malaya, for, until its emergence as a separate nation in August 1965, Singapore as the focal point of reference for researches was not part of the historical consciousness.

The Re-assertion of the British Empire in Southeast Asia

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-385
Author(s):  
Caroline Elkins
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
World War ◽  
Global Context

Bayly and Harper's Forgotten Wars examines the interrelated events, individuals, and ideologies involved in Britain's re-conquest of Southeast Asia after World War II, as well as its authoritarian attempts to shape the postwar landscape there and to re-assert its political and moral authority in a rapidly shifting global context. British imperial violence and authoritarianism were more pronounced in Southeast Asia during the postwar era than commonly acknowledged. Hence, issues of morality, objectivity, and methodology acquire a new relevance concerning the literature about the end of the British Empire.

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