Cecilia Morgan . Building Better Britains? Settler Societies in the British World, 1783–1920. International Themes and Issues 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Pp. 202. $24.95 (paper).

Abstract

Attlee government. These supplemented the "negative" vetting introduced in March 1948. Civil liberties were circumscribed, but debates within the parliamentary party were contained because the decision-making circle was so closed and discussions so secret. However, through his close reading of committee minutes, Lomas reveals that differences of opinion, some heated, over counter-subversive measures did exist at higher levels, not just between Whitehall and Washington but also within the cabinet, across departments, and between the chiefs of staff and the Foreign Office.The publisher's copy editor has served Lomas well: a rare mistake was the Australian prime minister J. B. Chifley being labeled a "Premier" (233). With Lomas's emphasis on archival analysis and with his academic prose, his book will be of much greater interest to the specialist than to the general reader-bureaucratic documents rarely lend themselves to sparkling expression or engrossing narrative. That said, this book fills admirably an important historiographical gap in the so-called missing dimension of intelligence and security studies.