James Cooper. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: A Very Political Special Relationship.

Abstract

Scholarly attention to the top-level relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States has generally tended to explore diplomacy and strategy. The 1980s—the era of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan—saw enhanced Anglo-American nuclear collaboration, American backing for the United Kingdom in the Falklands Crisis, and shared policies toward the Soviet Union. There was also conflict over matters such as the U.S. effort to topple the left-wing government of Grenada, a member of the British Commonwealth. As these issues have been well covered, British historian James Cooper has instead chosen to explore the connections, parallels, and contrasts between the respective domestic policies of Thatcher and Reagan. A major theme of the study is “policy transfer,” and this book is in part a “transnational” history, identifying the bridges—such as think tanks—between the two countries' governments in an era dominated by “New Right” economic thinking in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The study paints a complex picture and adds an illuminating new dimension to the Anglo-American relationship.