This study provides an analysis of the major questions surrounding the debate, formulation and execution of foreign policy in the age of Walpole. It is a subject which has tended to be ignored by historians, yet it was central to the political activity of the period. as well as to historians of Parliament, Jacobitism, trade and the press. Drawing on a range of primary source material, Jeremy Black explores the substance and direction of policy, and the inevitable political wrangles. This text should be of interest to students of foreign policy, but also to historians of Parliament, Jacobitism, trade, and the press.

In 1783 Britain had lost America and was unstable domestically. By 1793 it had regained its position as the leading global power. Three successive crises are examined during the intervening years in an effort to throw light on the British state in an "Age of Revolutions" and a crucial period of international development.

Through its focus on the relationship between foreign and domestic politics, this book provides a new perspective on the events of George I's reign (1714-27). Based on a wealth of British and foreign primary sources, Black links diplomacy to domestic politics to show that foreign policy was a key aspect of government as well as the leading battleground both for domestic politics and for ministerial rivalries. As a result he demonstrates how party identities in foreign policy were not marginal, to either policy or party, but, instead, central to both.