In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744–57: Mid-Century Crisis by Jeremy Black
  • Derek Ryan Whaley
Black, Jeremy, British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744–57: Mid-Century Crisis, Farnham, Ashgate, 2015; hardback; pp. 282; R.R.P. £70.00; ISBN 9781472423696.

Jeremy Black’s published works span broad mass-market texts to erudite, specialised studies of a particular period. In the case of the present book, one finds the latter: using such neglected contemporary resources as personal correspondence between government officials and foreign officers and newspaper articles, Black reassembles British foreign policy from the middle of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) to the beginning of the Seven Years War (1756–63).

However, this work may be accessible only by historians of eighteenth-century British politics. Those interested in the general monarchic history of the period would be better served reading Black’s excellent The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty (Bloomsbury, 2007). Those with a more specific interest in eighteenth-century foreign policy would enjoy his Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Ashgate, 2011). Black himself recommends that readers, before starting this one, should read its two companion volumes covering earlier periods of the century: Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–27 (Ashgate, 2014) and British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1727–44 (Ashgate, 2014).

Black divides this book into two thematic and seven chronological chapters. The thematic chapters never linger long on any single subject, and nor do they adhere to a semblance of chronology, but instead are divided into over a dozen subsections ranging from ‘The Royal Family’ in Chapter 2 to ‘Redefining the State’ in Chapter 3. In addition, because of the casualness with which Black introduces individual people into his narrative – totalling hundreds by the final page – a reader will be pardoned for forgetting most of them and confusing many, since titles, both personal and governmental, seem to have changed frequently in this period.

Fortunately, the difficult journey through the thematic chapters is rewarded in the much more straightforward and chronologically ordered chapters that begin with the year 1744 and conclude in 1757. The presentation of these is more consistent with Black’s accomplished style of storytelling. It is here that you see Black at his best, recounting the struggles that the [End Page 196] government had within itself and with the larger public in maintaining the War of the Austrian Succession while under threat from Jacobites and the French. As his narrative progresses, Black documents in fine detail how changing domestic perspectives briefly forced Britain out of the continental system, only for it to re-enter that system in 1756 with renewed vigour and imperial ambitions.

Throughout the book, Black highlights numerous sub-themes that ultimately contribute to Britain’s decisive victory in the Seven Years War. He focuses frequently on the continental system of alliances and the balance of power, with a special interest in how that system collapsed at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. He integrates Franco-Jacobite activity, always treating it separately from other Anglo-French relations. He discusses financial relationships and the strange arrangement British lenders had with the French government. He follows British public opinion as it vacillates between continental intervention and an abandonment of involvement in Europe. He notes whenever possible where the Electorate of Hanover, George II’s personal domain, fitted into the larger scheme of foreign policy, and how its vulnerable location in the western Empire was a constant problem in continental relations. And he includes whenever possible policies that affected the American colonies, although such a focus tends to neglect the history of any other British colonies in this period, including notably Ireland.

Black’s close familiarity with this topic is obvious, but what could have been an extremely interesting narrative of British foreign policy in the mid-eighteenth century is somewhat disappointing. While the central chronological chapters read rather fluidly, the other chapters are confusing and might even be incoherent to all except the most well-informed Georgian scholars. Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this book, for this reviewer, is that the volume lacks extensive footnotes or even a bibliography...

pdf

Share