ABSTRACT
Beneath some of the idealistic rhetoric about the mission of the Council to increase 'cultural understanding', there is a constant recognition of its commercial and political role. A major shift in British Council policy occurred after the war, especially with the publication of the Drogheda Report, in which it was suggested that the Council should shift its emphasis from 'cultural' to 'educational' affairs and from 'developed' to 'developing' countries. Despite its claims to independence and autonomy, then, the British Council is clearly an institution supportive of British commercial and political interests. It has always had the goal of spreading the English language as far as possible and this has been for clear political and commercial reasons. The greatest influence of the United States, however, has been in the post-war era and thus as more of a neocolonial than as a colonial power.
