Cover -- Half-title page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: British Armament Firms' Independence and Power -- Selection of Firms -- The Arc of the State-Firm Relationship -- A Military-Industrial Complex? -- Assessing the Independence and Power of Armstrongs and Vickers -- Part I Selling at Home -- 1 Armstrongs and Vickers Become Armament Firms: The Challenges They Faced and the Strategies They Developed -- The Armstrongs Origin Story -- The Vickers Origin Story
Challenge One: Laissez-faire and Free Trade Policies -- Challenge Two: Class Prejudices -- Challenge Three: Departmental Resistance -- Armament Firms' Strategies and Tactics -- Strategy One: Building and Maintaining Relationships in Britain -- Strategy Two: Building and Maintaining Relationships with Elites in Other States -- Strategy Three: Excluding Competitors -- Strategy Four: Cooperating and Colluding with Other Firms -- Strategy Five: Diversifying -- Strategy Six: Financing -- Strategy Seven: Innovating -- Summary
2 Selling Armaments in Britain 1860-1900: Armstrongs Rises and Vickers Evolves -- The 1860s -- 1870s -- 1880s -- 1890s -- Summary -- 3 Selling Armaments in Britain 1901-1918: Vickers Rises and Armstrongs Responds -- Boer War Production -- A Collapse in Orders -- Royalty Negotiations -- Relations with the Government -- Early Airpower Work -- Collaboration on Prices -- International Diversifications -- Crisis/Opportunity: Rearmament for War -- Sharing Wartime Intelligence -- State-Firm Frictions over Costs and Profits -- Summary
4 Selling Armaments in Britain 1919-1935: Interwar Struggles and Vickers-Armstrongs Is Born -- Crisis: The End of the War -- Strategies for Survival -- Crisis: The Threat from International Arms Control -- Crisis: The Threat of Going Under -- Vickers-Armstrongs Is Born -- Crisis: The Great Depression -- Crisis: More Arms Control -- Crisis: The Anti-Armament Firm Movement -- Summary -- 5 Selling Armaments in Britain 1936-1955: Vickers-Armstrongs and the Challenges of Wartime and Peacetime -- Retooling during the Lull -- Rearmament Begins -- Vickers-Armstrongs' Export Dilemma -- World War Two
The Early Postwar Period -- Crisis: The Threat of Nationalization -- Opportunity: Denationalization -- Crisis/Opportunity: Rearmament -- Part II Selling Abroad -- 6 Foreign Policies for Selling Armaments to Latin America -- Conclusion -- 7 Foreign Policies for Selling Armaments to Asia -- Conclusion -- 8 Foreign Policies for Selling Arms to the Ottoman Empire/Turkey -- Conclusions -- Conclusions: Assessing Armstrongs and Vickers' Independence and Power in Relation to the British State: A Military-Industrial Complex? -- Independence? -- Power? -- A British Military-Industrial Complex?
Summary
Explores Britain's most prominent armaments firms and their relationships with the British Government and foreign states from 1855 to 1955
