Abstract:

Still a hegemonic power at the close of the Victorian period, and able to claim a seat among the Big Three on the morrow of the Second World War (in spite of the fact that the war had destroyed the wealth of the nation), the United Kingdom holds nowadays a position of middle rank power. Nevertheless the ageing lion, whatever its many wounds, has kept its energy and most of all its extraordinary capacity for readaptation. Consequently, it is now necessary to assess two extremes : a bright future based on periodic reevaluation, or a slope of irreversible decline in a country assailed internally by the danger of disruption and externally by its congenital backward moves in Europe.


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