Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714-1727

by Jeremy Black

Through its focus on the relationship between foreign and domestic politics, this book provides a new perspective on the events of George I's reign (1714-27). Based on a wealth of British and foreign primary sources, Black links diplomacy to domestic politics to show that foreign policy was a key aspect of government as well as the leading battleground both for domestic politics and for ministerial rivalries. As a result he demonstrates how party identities in foreign policy were not marginal, to either policy or party, but, instead, central to both.

257 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2014

About the author

Jeremy Black is an English historian, who was formerly a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).

Reviews

[JR Roach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing book. I'm currently doing lots of reading on 18th century Britain to better understand the place of the monarchy after the Revolution Settlement and to properly assess the continuities and discontinuities between Britain and Europe in this era. The traditional account (long since overturned by historians) posited that the Glorious Revolution ushered in the era of limited parliamentary monarchy, with political initiative passing to ministers relying on parliamentary confidence, a transition only strengthened by the foreign nature of the Hanoverians. It's clear that while parliament became more powerful (more out of fiscal-military necessity than constitutional transition), the king retained an immense amount of power and importance within the political system, and that understanding court politics alongside parliamentary politics is an essential to provide a full account of Britain in this era and to properly compare it with Continental monarchies.

Jeremy Black is one of the leading historians of this era and one who devoted a great deal of work to bring out the continuing importance of court politics and the wider European context of the British monarchy. So I was hoping this book could act as an introduction to the basic events, personalities, and structures of politics in the reign of George I. Unfortunately, it is not that. The book assumes a great deal of familiarity with the personalities and events of the reign, and operates more as an interpretative essay than a basic narrative account. Black discusses the major events of his reign (Great Northern War, Quadruple Alliance, Whig split and the rise of Walpole, etc), but his primary purpose is to complicate realist accounts of foreign policy in this era founded on assumptions of monolithic states with well-defined, rationally pursued interests. So Black emphasizes the composite states of this era, the complicated interaction of monarchs with ministers and intermediary bodies, the role of aristocracy and patronage, the rise of public opinion, and the continuing importance of dynastic and religious considerations in shaping policy. The problem is that Black's attempt to draw attention to the complicated interaction between these factors crowds out any attempt to provide a cogent narrative overview of events, and his conceptualizations at the beginning and end of the book feel incomplete and lack clarity. The book overall suffers from a severe lack of editing, with clunky and complicated prose and poor organization making it hard to follow narrative or analytical threads. As a result, while his basic thrust is correct, I learned far less than I hoped to from the book.

I've already started Black's book on George II, which is written as a much more conventional biography, and it's shocking how much better the prose and analytical clarity is already.