The Foreign Office, Commerce and British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century

This book addresses the interface of the British Foreign Office, foreign policy and commerce in the twentieth century. Two related questions are considered: what did the Foreign Office do to support British commerce, and how did commerce influence British foreign policy? The editors of this work collect a range of case studies that explore the attitude of the Foreign Office towards commerce and trade promotion, against the backdrop of a century of relative economic decline, while also considering the role of British diplomats in creating markets and supporting UK firms. This highly researched and detailed examination is designed for readers aiming to comprehend the role that commerce played in Britain’s foreign relations, in a century when trade and commerce have become an inseparable element in foreign and security policies.

• commerce
• foreign policy
• economic diplomacy
• trade
• diplomacy
• international relations
• politics

“This volume provides useful empirical evidence of the dangers of diffusing the oversight of external concerns through multiple competing ministries … . For anyone seeking to understand the immense complexity of commercial diplomacy, and to gain a grasp of the trajectory of this core area of diplomatic activity, this is an invaluable volume, and likely to become a standard work.” (Erik Goldstein, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 55 (2), 2020)

“This volume of collected essays on the history of British commercial diplomacy across the twentieth century, edited by three specialists in British foreign policy, is … both extremely timely and very welcome. … Overall, the volume makes an important contribution to the study of diplomacy, with the combined emphasis on the need for a wide range of perspectives on the importance of commercial matters, and the value of multi-archival research.” (Sue Onslow, H-Net Reviews Humanities and Social Sciences, networks.h-net.org, September, 2019)

• School of History, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

  John Fisher

• LSE, LSE IDEAS, London, UK

  Effie G. H. Pedaliu

• Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, UK

  Richard Smith

John Fisher is Associate Head of History at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), UK, and the author of several books, including British Diplomacy and the Descent into Chaos (2012).

Effie G. H. Pedaliu is Fellow at LSE IDEAS, UK. She specialises in international history; the Cold War; Mediterranean Security; British and American Cold War diplomacy and strategy.

Richard Smith is Senior Historian at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, UK, and editor of Documents on British Policy Overseas.

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