To A People On Seeing Americans of the 1940’s Through British Eyes

Abstract

My primary interest in this thesis has been to investigate what kind of people the Americans were when the U.S. emerged from its isolationist shell as a major power in world affairs during 1940’s. Throughout its history, America had adhered, for the most part, to a policy of non-intervention and non-commitment in its foreign relations; the role of the U.S. played in world affairs, consequently, had been relatively unimpressive, ineffectual, and minuscule when compared with the impact of the various European nations on international politics. But, with the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. once more found itself swept up in the maelstrom of world-wide war and foreign affairs. Only this time, its involvement was inextricable. By the 1940’s America had discovered that the oceans flanking it no longer provided assailable protection against external threats to its national security, and it had developed into a prominent economic, military, and industrial—therefore, political—force in the world. Considering the drastic changes that were occurring to the American nation and to its former secondary role in world affairs in the 1940’s, then, I thought it would be valuable to explore the question of what Americans were like in this pivotal decade of American history.