British World Policy and the Projection of Global Power, c.1830–1960

This book, published in honor of the late Keith Neilson, tackles the issue of Britain’s world power status, and its decline, from a variety of interesting angles. Its scope is more ambitious than the dates in the title suggest, as both Otte’s chapter about the Foreign Office (fo) and Kathleen Burk’s about Britain’s economic networks in South America deal with the period since 1800. The geographical coverage extends beyond “the British world” to include Japan as well as Russian views of Britain. Some, although by no means all, of the twelve chapters engage directly with Neilson’s work. For example, John H. Maurer, in his assessment of the British response to Imperial Germany’s naval expansionism before 1914, concludes, “As Keith Neilson argued, Britain was no weary titan but a formidable Great Power, fully capable of competing in the international rivalries of that troubled age and beating back challengers, its...