Cloth over boards; 262 pp. B&w plates. Appendices, Bibliography, Index. Table of Contents The Old Foreign Office, Transition and Reform 1901-1905, Power and Perplexities 1905-1914, The World Outside, The End of the Old Order.
Zara Steiner, FBA (née Shakow) was an American-born British historian and academic. She specialised in foreign relations, international relations, 20th century history of Europe and of the United States. Her husband is the essayist George Steiner
Lays bare the complex interactions between ministers, officials and ingrained diplomatic practice and tradition that helped shape Britain’s part in the origins of the first world war. It makes an informative companion to Barbara Tuchman's 1966 bestseller THE PROUD TOWER: A PORTRAIT OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE WAR: 1890-1914, which devoted a quarter of the content to the British Ministers and MPs whom the Foreign Office served.