Caution and Cooperation

In Caution and Cooperation, Phillip E. Myers turns a century of scholarship about Civil War Anglo-American relations on its head. He argues that the war continued a tradition of cordiality and pragmatism and effectively ushered in the “Great Rapprochement” traditionally seen as occurring at century's end. The book's argument is clear. Anglo-American rapprochement remained a powerful trend even during much of 1861. The Trent affair was a lesser crisis than conventional accounts claim and actually defused tensions. Henceforth, caution and cooperation prevailed. In 1862, the British government rejected intervention, and the Lincoln administration weathered a cabinet crisis that might have disrupted transatlantic affairs. Thereafter, relations improved and were marked by numerous examples of “explicit mutual support” (p. 3). After the war, the two nations' appreciation for the advantages of good relations culminated in the 1871 Treaty of Washington and continued throughout the rest of the century. Myers reiterates on nearly every page that Britain and the United States had nothing to gain from war and everything to gain from peace

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