^aSchool of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. E-mail: Michael.moran@manchester.ac.uk

¹The title is from Beer (1965, 389): 'To give such weight to ideas is not to overlook the role of the "blind forces" in history. One of our main concerns has been to detect the unanticipated consequences of reigning ideas of the Collectivist period'.

Abstract

The American study of British politics has a long lineage. Samuel Beer was its most distinguished 20th century exponent. However, Beer has an added significance: he closed the period of anglophile scholarship. The reasons for the exhaustion of this tradition have much to do with the crises of British politics from the mid-1960s onwards, and Beer's writings illuminate strikingly how crisis destroyed the old anglophile enchantment.