Isolationism and Appeasement

Abstract

Studies of Anglo-American relations during the 1920s have emphasised the extent to which the United States increased its economic power in relation to that of Britain. These works have concentrated on the financial aspect of the relationship and have pointed to the extent to which Washington benefited at London’s expense from the settlement of Britain’s war debts to the United States in 1923, as well as the debt agreements Washington reached with the other Allies, the American role in restoring Germany’s economy so that it could pay reparations, and the development by American financiers and industrialists of new markets abroad. Much of this work was by American scholars: it suggested that by the late 1920s Washington’s world influence had, to an extent, superseded that of London.