Resumen de Britain Gets Its Way: Power and Peace in Anglo-American Relations, 1838-1846
From the perspective of twenty-first-century America, it seems natural to assume that no other nation has ever been able seriously to threaten the continental states with its navy or military. The assumption that US geography has always deterred such pressure, however, ignores the early Victorian era. In the 1830s and 1840s, one nation could and did pose a credible threat to the United States: Great Britain. As the world's supreme naval and financial power, Britain had the means to protect and advance its interests in the face of American belligerence. Ultimately, Britain's strength deterred the United States from turning the tensions of 1838-46 into war. True, by this time Britain could never invade and reconquer its former American colonies. But it was never in its interest to go to war with the US. Anglo-American commercial relations were quite profitable, and peace kept them so. Furthermore, the British preferred a divided America, fighting over slavery and states' rights, to one united against an external enemy.
