Britain in Global Politics ― From Churchill to Blair

This collection of essays focuses Britain's role in global affairs since the Second World War. The essays cover a broad field, from relations with Japan and China, through European and African developments, to defence planning in Whitehall. They include also political, economic, defence, ideological and religious dimensions and, even, 'futurology'. The essays in the collection offer fresh insights and new interpretations of the way in which a weakened Britain conducted its foreign policy in order to protect its interests and retain influence in international affairs. The book presents readers with wide-ranging perspectives on Britain and the World in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, based on the latest available evidence. This collection of essays, along with the accompanying volume covering the period from Gladstone to Churchill, is published in memory of Saki Dockrill.

Effie G. H. Pedaliu is Fellow at LSE IDEAS, UK. She is the author of Britain, Italy and the Origins of the Cold War, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and many articles on the Cold War. Her book The Contemporary Mediterranean World will be published in 2014. She is a member of the peer review college of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

John W. Young is Professor of International History at the University of Nottingham, UK, and Chair of the British International History Group. His recent publications include Twentieth Century Diplomacy: A Case Study in British Practice, 1963-76 (2008) and, co-edited with Michael Hopkins and Saul Kelly of The Washington Embassy: British Ambassadors to the United States, 1939-77 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Michael Kandiah is the Director of the Witness Seminar Programme, Institute of Contemporary British History, King's College London, UK. He regularly publishes the transcripts and findings of his oral history projects and his Elite Oral History Reader is forthcoming (2015).