Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the foundations of the Anglo-American special relationship. It focuses mainly on the pre-World War Two period, teasing out some of the raw material that Winston Churchill had to work with, as well as controversies to avoid, in developing a discourse of natural special relations between Britain and America. The book looks broadly at agency and legacy in Churchill's post-World War Two development of the special relationship. It explores the concept of strategic culture and what it might contribute to understanding the origins and development of the special relationship, which Churchill spoke of several times during the war, but most famously in the Fulton speech. The book also provides a highly original take on Anglo-American relations in his work on what Edwards aptly terms the landscape of Anglo-American memory.