The compelling essays brought together in this collection provide new assessments of the course of British foreign policy from the Glorious Revolution to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, its underlying principles as well as Britain's standing in international politics. The essays examine these issues through the prism of the personalities of those Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers who had a major impact on the course and conduct of British foreign policy, from the elder Pitt in the eighteenth century to Margaret Thatcher at the end of the twentieth. This collection of essays offers a powerful challenge to many traditional assumptions about Britain's decline as a great power, her imperial and continental commitments, and the contentious issue of 'Europe'.