True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

In the post-Cold War world, the old power-structures have disappeared, and this book attempts to discover who today's diplomats really are, what they are trying to accomplish, and whether they succeed. Exploring the secret world of international diplomacy, with its daily dramas and achievements, the book incorporates personal portraits of some of the key personnel in the British Foreign Office. Readers can witness private discussions between states, and working relationships between elected government ministers and their civil servants.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 1994

About the author

After being a Cambridge postgraduate, a teacher, a marketing executive and a civil servant, Ruth Dudley Edwards became a full-time writer. A journalist, broadcaster, historian and prize-winning biographer who lives in London, her recent non-fiction includes books about The Economist, the Foreign Office, the Orange Order and Fleet Street. The first of her ten satirical mysteries, Corridors of Death, was short-listed for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger; two others were nominated for the CWA Last Laugh Award. Her two short stories appeared respectively in The Economist and the Oxford Book of Detective Stories.

Series:
* Robert Amiss Mystery

Reviews

[Miss M]

"Now, for the first time, the Foreign Office has opened its doors to the BBC: in this book, and the television series which it accompanies, we can find out what life is really like for those who represent the UK abroad or serve ministers at home."

Published in 1994. Well done, and interesting snapshot of the FCO at a time when it was changing to reflect, among other things, the breakdown/evolution of former communist states and easing off of the cold war. Difficult to rate, though, as many of the issues and situations it describes have changed so substantially and it's just...dated.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/...