The Collapse of British Power

The Collapse of British Power (1972) was the first entry in what became known as Correlli Barnett’s ‘Pride & Fall’ sequence on British power in the twentieth century. It is concerned chiefly with the years 1918-1940 wherein historians have often focused on the great monetary and human costs of the First World War. Barnett, however, issues a bold and detailed indictment of Britain’s strategic over-stretch, its attachment to the Commonwealth and to a ‘world power’ status that, by the end of the Second World War, it could no longer afford – at a moment, moreover, when capital investment in industrial modernization was sorely required.

‘A controversial book by our eminent military historian.’ The Times

‘Argues in favour of tough, unsentimental and, above all, ‘realistic’ policy-making.’ Times Literary Supplement