Between Empire and Continent: British Foreign Policy before the First World War

Andreas Rose

May 2017 · Studies in British and Imperial History Book 5 · Berghahn Books

About this ebook

Prior to World War I, Britain was at the center of global relations, utilizing tactics of diplomacy as it broke through the old alliances of European states. Historians have regularly interpreted these efforts as a reaction to the aggressive foreign policy of the German Empire. However, as Between Empire and Continent demonstrates, British foreign policy was in fact driven by a nexus of intra-British, continental and imperial motivations. Recreating the often heated public sphere of London at the turn of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking study carefully tracks the alliances, conflicts, and political maneuvering from which British foreign and security policy were born.

About the author

Andreas Rose teaches Modern History at the University of Bonn. His research interests include the international history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the history of Britain and Germany. His recent publications include Die Außenpolitik des Wilhelminischen Kaiserreichs, 1890–1918 (2013) and, as coeditor, The Wars before the Great War: Conflict and International Politics before the Outbreak of the Great War (2015).