Post-War Planning on the Periphery: Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy in South America, 1939-1945

This title explores Anglo-American economic diplomacy in South America during the Second World War. Thomas Mills explores how relations between Britain and the US in South America were related to the development of the economic landscape of the post-war world – the economic world that we are, to a large extent, still living in. Drawing on extensive secondary reading and archival research in official and private collections, this new study challenges existing scholarship – including notions about the nature of the economic diplomacy undertaken by the wartime allies – and makes an informed and original contribution to research on Anglo-American relations. Topics explored include: the Lend-Lease Export White Paper and its effects on British exports to South America; Economic warfare policies such as blacklisting and the Axis replacement programme; specific industries that had a strategic value as well as commercial importance, such as telecommunications; and, enterprises that took on an importance beyond their intrinsic worth, such as the central Brazilian railway.