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© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.

that the United States was wholeheartedly engaged in this clandestine and murkymode of warfare. Providing such context is not heresy, but rather, provides abetter explanation as to why the ‘cold’ war took the shape it did and how itsubsequently influenced American politics. Furthermore, the notion of excessiveand aggressive Executive power is never considered. As a result, Haynes andKlehr do not assess how far a government should go in the name of nationalsecurity and when civil liberties must be upheld, insomuch as they side withExecutive security concerns against ‘doctrinaire logic’ (p. 240). These oversightsare telling given that the book is part of a ‘Cambridge Essential History’ seriesdesigned for undergraduate survey courses. Lacking footnotes and a bibliography(a brief comment on certain key texts is given at the end of each chapter) theresult is a US-centric account implying American benevolence and reaction tocommunist intrusion. It may produce opportune conclusions amid trying times,although it is questionable whether this is the best way to teach the history ofthe cold war.

University of Birmingham

KAETEN MISTRY

Cold War at 30,000 Feet. By Jeffrey A. Engel. Harvard University Press. xi +351pp. £22.95/$35.00.

Jeffrey Engel has produced a fascinating book, which demonstrates conclusivelynot only how important civil aviation was in the early cold war period, but alsohow commercial and security pressures surrounding aviation affected the‘special relationship’ between Britain and the United States. The early chaptersof the book mainly concern how Britain tried to maintain (or regain) inter-national strength through aviation dominance (or at least parity). The bookthen moves on to show increasing British attempts to find new markets to sell to,culminating in a successful, though ultimately hollow, sale to communist Chinain 1963. The final chapters demonstrate the gradual shift in US policy towardsallowing exports to China, as changes in the international context necessitatedtrade for commercial reasons.

In essence, the book develops three themes. The first concerns the overallrelationship between economic and technological power and internationalinfluence. From the outset, Engel claims that the book is about power, especiallyin terms of prestige and influence. The potential and inevitable competitionbetween the UK and US aviation industries during the early cold war is high-lighted, not only because of their commercial potential, but also because somany hopes and fears were put into airpower – both civil and military – in theearly cold war that it became an important battleground for broader cold warconcerns.

The second theme concerns the key balance between commerce and security.Britain was in a difficult position in the post-war period, needing to rebuildsociety and the economy, as well as wanting to remain influential internationally,and therefore endeavoured to put commerce before security by attempting totrade civil aircraft abroad in order to gain a commercial advantage. The authoroutlines numerous examples of tensions between the USA and the UK as aresult of aviation sales in the crucial early years of the cold war, demonstratingthat his fundamental thesis is correct: sales to Sweden, the Soviet Union, Argentina,China, Hong Kong are all discussed persuasively.

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Finally, the book is a highly effective account of the different ways in whichthese key allies saw the cold war. The British believed that being on the front lineof the cold war meant that they were fundamentally at risk from Soviet airattack, and as such were more concerned about making the Soviet Union less athreat than with military competition or containment. In this light sellingadvanced aviation technology abroad could serve two functions: to open up thecommunist world to the fruits of trade and foster reconciliation; and to helprebuild Britain at the same time. In contrast, the USA put a premium onsecurity at the cost of the concerns of commerce, although in the early years thedomestic economy did more than enough for aviation in the USA. By the end ofthe account in the late 1960s, the Nixon administration had come around to theBritish point of view.

Overall, the book is successful in demonstrating the salience of the focus onaviation to tell something of broader significance: that the competition betweenthe USA and Britain was also very much about the British desire to maintainsome semblance of independence in an increasingly US-dominated westernworld.Queen Mary, University of London BRYAN MABEE

Historical Dictionary of United States–Latin American Relations. By JosephSmith. Scarecrow Press, 2007. xlvii + 275pp. £48.00.

Joseph Smith has completed the third in a series of ‘Historical Dictionaries ofUS Diplomacy’ having earlier also compiled the Historical Dictionary of theCold War in the same series. Smith is an authority in both Latin American andUS diplomatic history. He has published extensively in both areas and has herecompiled a dictionary of terms on the inter-American relationship since 1776.These books provide an invaluable resource for fact-checking and ascertainingpertinent contexts to particular issues. In addition it offers several additionalsections on acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, a lengthy introductionsurveying the main trends in the relationship and delineating the broad themesand issues. The end material includes a list of the US Presidents and Secretariesof State, but not the various Latin American leaders. Appendix B provides sevenextracts from major US speeches on Latin America ranging from the MonroeDoctrine to President Reagan’s views on the importance of Central America.The bibliography provides an extensive guide to the literature in both essay formand lists of document collections and books broken down by period or location.Taken together it will become an essential reference point for students of thesubject.

The introductory essay provides an invaluable survey of the periodization ofthe relationship in general terms. Obviously the diplomacy between Washingtonand the region was based on vast inequalities in terms of both power and wealthand Smith briefly explores the diplomatic context of that situation and theambivalence on the question whether the United States was preferred as a‘sleeping giant’ during periods of US neglect of Latin America or the giant thatwas frequently ‘wide awake’. The quest for independence and the indifference ofthe United States during the formative period of independence until it hadsorted out its interests in Florida with the Spanish illustrates the complexinteraction of the ideals espoused in seminal US statements with the pursuit of