‘In the National Interest’ does not focus on diplomatic history but instead on the broad strands of development and on the politics of policy, the way in which different approaches reflect political commitments and have been affected by them. This then will not be a book for those committed to the idea that there is a clear national interest, or, indeed, an obvious process of policy formation. Instead, Professor Black describes a world in which the national interest is contested and foreign policy is important to political identities and rivalries, and is affected by them.This approach is made more significant by the extent to which international relations have now become highly contentious, in a volatile atmosphere that is testing political assumptions about interests and responses. The situation is likely to escalate in complexity and gravity in the coming years and this book provides the crucial introduction to the politics of foreign policy.What changes between the politics of Religious Internationalism 1500-1700 and the politics of a foreign policy of Imperial Grandeur 1800-1900? Without some understanding of that question, one cannot hope to understand the politics of contemporary foreign policy. Why does Britain support Ukraine - and when will it stop doing so?
