Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 ‘A world apart’: gentlemen amateurs to professional generalists
- 2 ‘Experiencing the foreign’: British foreign policy makers and the delights of travel
- 3 Arbitration: the first phase, 1870–1914
- 4 ‘Only a d…d marionette’? The influence of ambassadors on British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914
- 5 Old diplomacy and new: the Foreign Office and foreign policy, 1919–1939
- 6 The evolution of British diplomatic strategy for the Locarno Pact, 1924–1925
- 7 Chamberlain's ambassadors
- 8 The Foreign Office and France during the Phoney War, September 1939–May 1940
- 9 Churchill the appeaser? Between Hitler Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two
- 10 From ally to enemy: Britain's relations with the Soviet Union, 1941–1948
- Works by Zara Steiner
- Select bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 ‘A world apart’: gentlemen amateurs to professional generalists
- 2 ‘Experiencing the foreign’: British foreign policy makers and the delights of travel
- 3 Arbitration: the first phase, 1870–1914
- 4 ‘Only a d…d marionette’? The influence of ambassadors on British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914
- 5 Old diplomacy and new: the Foreign Office and foreign policy, 1919–1939
- 6 The evolution of British diplomatic strategy for the Locarno Pact, 1924–1925
- 7 Chamberlain's ambassadors
- 8 The Foreign Office and France during the Phoney War, September 1939–May 1940
- 9 Churchill the appeaser? Between Hitler Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two
- 10 From ally to enemy: Britain's relations with the Soviet Union, 1941–1948
- Works by Zara Steiner
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the last forty years or so, ‘diplomatic history’ has died; from its ashes has arisen ‘international history. In Britain's case, during the 1950s, the study of British diplomatic history had fallen into the doldrums. Many of the monographs produced in this field during that decade tended to be rather turgid accounts of the minutiae of diplomacy and were, more often than not, based on published volumes of despatches released by European foreign ministries. These works contained little in the way of explanation of how foreign policies were actually formulated by governments, except for what could be gleaned from these publications and a limited number of archives. Thus, ‘the realities behind diplomacy’ tended to be ignored, and strategic, economic and social factors as they affected foreign policymaking were hardly mentioned. Zara Steiner was one of a new generation of historians at the time who began to investigate the process of foreign policy formulation, especially its administrative and institutional aspects – Cabinet and Cabinet ministers, Cabinet committees, the Committee of Imperial Defence after 1902, the Foreign Office, other Departments of State and their officials. Born in the United States, educated there and in Great Britain, and practising her craft as an historian in Great Britain, Zara brought to the emerging field of ‘international history’ a transnational view of Great Power politics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Diplomacy and World PowerStudies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1951, pp. xi - xviiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996