British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century, Volume I

Antony Best is Associate Professor of International History at the London School of Economics, UK. His most recent single-authored book is British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-1941 (Palgrave 2002), and he is one of the co-authors of International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond, 3rd edition (2015). He is currently completing a monograph on British interactions with Japan between 1854 and 1922.Gaynor Johnson is Professor of International History at the University of Kent, UK. Her most recent publications relate to the history and operation of the British Foreign Office and the use of prosopography as a research tool for international historians.  She has also published widely on twentieth-century British foreign policy.  Her most recent book is Politician and Internationalist: Lord Robert Cecil (2013).  She is currently writing two books; one on British ambassadors to Paris during the era between the two world wars, and an institutional history of the Foreign Office.

• Chapter 1. Introduction: British Foreign and Strategic Policy, 1890-1939; Antony Best and Gaynor Johnson.- Chapter 2. Lord Haldane and Britain’s Decision for War in 1914; John Young.- Chapter 3. Sir Bernard Pares (1867-1949) and Samuel N. Harper (1882-1943): Critics of Bolshevism, Enthusiasts for Stalinism; David Watson.- Chapter 4. Britain and the East Asian Conundrum, 1918-19: Another Side of Peace-making; Antony Best.- Chapter 5. The Emergence of the Permanent Court of International Justice, 1919-22; Lorna Lloyd.- Chapter 6. “A piece of unbalanced impertinence”: Alwyn Parker’s Railway Diplomacy, 1923; John Fisher.- Chapter 7. Politics, Public Discourse and British Naval Policy in the 1920s; Pippa Catterall.- Chapter 8. The Foreign Office and the Revival of the Balance of Power in British Strategy, 1922-1925; B. J. C. McKercher.- Chapter 9. Sir Ronald Lindsay and the New Deal, 1932-1935; Gaynor Johnson.- Chapter 10. “Sheer lunacy”: British Diplomats, the Handling of Documents and Overseas Security, 1936-1940; Chris Baxter.- Chapter 11. Exploiting Appeasement? The Royal Air Force after the Munich Agreement; Alastair Noble.- Chapter 12. Britain and the Munich Crisis: Eighty Years On; Peter Neville.- Chapter 13. ‘Soap-box’ Diplomacy and ‘Shady Friends’; Andrew Stewart.- Chapter 14. Views of the Anglo-French Alliance 1939-40: Establishment and Press Compared; Richard Carswell.