ABSTRACT
Few names are more intimately connected with German studies in Britain and the
wider world than that of William Paterson. In a teaching and publishing career stretch-
ing over nearly 40 years he has covered almost the whole range of political institutions
and policy areas. His interests have covered industrial policy, environmental policy and
political parties.1 But the one topic to which he has returned again and again and on
which he has stamped his firmest mark is that of foreign policy, whether of the old
Federal Republic or of the post-unification ‘Berlin’ republic. Within that topic it is
Germany’s European policy that he has emphasised most, providing a running
commentary on its evolution over the decades, with several glances at the peculiarities
of Anglo-German relations.
