Reviews for An ocean apart

The average rating for An ocean apart based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-10-18 00:00:00 Joseph Palino An excellent and entertaining insight onto the "special relationship" between the USA and the UK. Did you know that in World War I the USA almost went to war AGAINST the UK? England would not pay its war debts, saying they had no money left. The USA said "well sell the Crown Jewels". Much of the accumulated wealth of the British Empire in Africa was stored as gold bullion in the stronghold at Johannesburg. Two US warships sailed into the harbour, held the British Garrison at gunpoint, and wheeled that gold bullion onto their gunships with wheelbarrows. From there they sailed tot eh USA, and the gold was taken to Fort Knox, where it still is today. Relations between USA and UK were at an absolute (although not an all time) low, but right then the Germans sunk the Lusitania. That situation was also interesting: one of those time points when history hung in the balance. The USA did not want to become involved in the petty feuds of Old Europe, and decided not to enter the war. However the warlords of industry could see huge potential profits by peddling arms (and supplies) to the warring parties. The problem with that was the the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom while formulating the constitution for their new and free land, had placed a clause into the US constitution that the US could not supply arms to warring nations. That noble philosophy was corrupted by fiscal pragmatism in the face of the huge profits that stood to be made selling arms to the seemingly insatiable market of the bickering states of Europe. So Congress actually changed the constitution during WWI, such that the USA could sell arms to warring parties, as long as it offered arms to both sides on the same conditions. That was of course totally hypocritical, because the British Navy was the most powerful in the world at the time (height of the British Empire), so any shipments bound for Germany would have been stopped and escorted to England. And so the high ideals of the Founding Fathers were rationalised to the realities of the human condition. The resulting steady stream of convoys essentially supplied the UK with an unlimited resource base, whereas Germany was restricted to the limited resources available within the footprint of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So the Germans began to torpedo the convoy ships with their U-boats. That is where the USA told Germany that if they torpedoed another US ship then the USA would declare war on Germany. The situation continued a while, with Britain mounting a huge war debt, the US merchants carrying that increasingly alarming debt and unsure whether England would win the war, and available resources in Germany inexorably approaching zero. It was in this background that the Johannesburg incident occurred. However it was not publicised by either the USA or the UK. Consequently, the Germans knew nothing of it. At that time the German generals advised the Kaiser that they should start sinking convoy ships again, and at the same time throw all available resources into a huge assault on the stalemated front line trenches. They predicted that the USA would declare war immediately, but that because they did not expect the move it would take them 6 months to mobilise and actually land on French soil. The German general assured the Kaiser that their front line assault would break through the trenches, enabling them to sweep deep into the countryside of France, cutting allied supply lines and establishing a pincer movement that would crush the allied armies in Europe. Within 6 months, they would have crossed the English Channel, conquered there, and thus the USA would have no beachhead on which to land their formidable army. The Kaiser agreed, the Lusitania was sunk, the USA declared war on Germany (rather than on England which they were within a hair's breadth of), and the Germans threw everything they had at the front. But, the allied front line held back the onslaught. 6 months later the US army landed in France, and the rest is history. If that tickles your curiosity, there's lots more in "An Ocean Apart", such as how the white house became white. It was originally a sandstone mansion until a British army unit set it to fire, so that the sandstone became black. The British arrived to find a hot meal set in the dining room of the whitehouse, which the officers first enjoyed before giving the order to burn it down. The President and his wife had had to leave in such a hurry that his wife left her hat on the hat hat rack in the rush. The British commanding officer took that hat back for his wife as a war trophy. I thoroughly recommend this book. It's an older one, but a 5 star one. Best regards, Mike

Review # 2 was written on 2009-02-21 00:00:00 Sebastian Weiner What a fun fun read. If you like history, and especially unusual trivia, then you enjoy this book. There are influences in our culture that go back to some English influences that our pleasant and fun to discover.