the book that wasn't there

Quite some time ago I had what I thought would be a great idea for a kid's book--maybe at the advanced jr. high, beginning high school level. The subject would be the diplomatic history of the relationship between the U.S. and Britain. My concept assumed that kids at that age (and even earlier) are well attuned to the "he/she used to be my best friend but now so-and-so is my best friend" type of narrative.

My plan, such as it was, was to find a good book for adults on the subject and then rewrite and recast it for a younger audience. But here's the thing (aside from my general lack of time and energy), no such book for adults appears to exist.

I thought I had found that book when I learned of God and Gold by Walter Russell Mead. I read a fair part of it and found that it was more of an essay/intellectual history of what Mead believes to be the ascendancy of the Anglo-American mindset, and the reaction to the same by the rest of the world. I also gathered from Mead's discussion of the existing literature that the book I sought had yet to be written.

So, if you know a specialist in diplomatic history, you could let her/him know that there's a fat target out there. If someone could write it well and bring it in within 300 pages, it could be a major classic.

I'll also imagine some of the high points of such a book:

--the founding of the English colonies and their development

--the perception of English pundits by the mid 18th century of the potential for rivalry between the colonies and the homeland. (Viz. A Struggle for Power by Theodore Draper, another book that I failed to finish.)

--the Revolutionary War and the 1812 War, and the treaties in between.

--commercial rivalry/British investment in the American economy

--the British tilt toward the Confederacy during the Civil War

--the rise of Germany and the Fish treaty

--alliance in WWs 1 and 2; FDR/Churchill

--the middle east, Sinai and beyond to the second Iraq war

--along the way, Reagan/Thatcher and Clinton/Blair/Bush

Undoubtedly it would take a master of compression and pith to bring this in under the page limit, but what an achievement that would be. At least let us hope if this book ever happens, the author will avoid the 500 page + behemoth.