ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief introduction to the main theoretical perspectives used by scholars of international relation. It analyses the development of the foreign policy-making process in the UK, starting with the formation of the Foreign Office in 1782. The chapter argues that the fortunes of this government department in some respects mirror those of Britain itself over the twentieth century. It provides the essential background for the main text, charting Britain’s relative decline from the 1890s, when it was an imperial power of unparalleled global reach, to the late 1930s, when, sensing that it had overstretched its resources, it was desperate to avoid war. Underlying this different approach to international relations was an economic position which had been virtually unchallenged in the mid nineteenth century, but which was beginning to fall behind rivals like the US and Germany by 1900.
