Book Review

Comparative/World

World War II was a multidimensional affair, involving the political, military, strategic, economic, and ideological preoccupation of many states and regions stretching from the western desert of Africa to the eastern Pacific rim. The war thus affected the fates of a huge number of human beings, whether they were politicians, civil servants, members of secret services, the military leadership, infantry soldiers, or ordinary civilians. It was like a massive earthquake taking place on the globe, not just because of the bombs that were dropped during the war but also because of the actual and latent dynamic political changes in the international system that were accelerated by the war. Richard J. Aldrich's book is concerned with the latter theme and investigates how the British and American secret services were sensitive to these changes, and how those different services fought to restore the peace in Asia in the wake of Japan's defeat.

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Based on extensive archival research in private and public papers in the United States and Britain, Aldrich takes us into the minefield of Anglo-American secret intelligence service operations in Burma, China, India, Indochina, Malaya, Singapore, and Thailand. In a sense, the book can be read as the spies' experiences of war in Asia; they were, unlike the policy makers in London and Washington, much closer to the actual scenes of war itself. However, Aldrich's theme is a bigger and a more ambitious one than this: the book is focused on colonialism and imperialism, investigating the Anglo-American divergent and convergent views on the British and European imperial legacies in postwar Asia. By combining two powerful themes, intelligence, and imperialism, Aldrich has produced a much needed and detailed study of the bureaucratic wrangles of the numerous secret agencies, which were often intertwined with rivalries at the highest level, between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, over the future of postwar Asia. While Aldrich is somewhat apologetic about the "two large but barely connected bodies of literature" in his introduction (p. 2), the book demonstrates that such a connection is inevitable and natural.

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