Whitehall Histories: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Publications
About the Book Series
FCO historians are responsible for editing Documents on British Policy Overseas (DBPO) and for overseeing the publication of FCO Internal Histories.
DBPO comprises three series of diplomatic documents, focusing on major themes in foreign policy since 1945, and drawn principally from the records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The latest volumes, published in Series III, are composed almost wholly of documents from within the thirty-year ‘closed period’, which would otherwise be unavailable to the public.
Since the early 1960s, several Internal Histories have been prepared by former or serving officers, the majority of which concentrated upon international developments and negotiations in which the UK has been directly involved. These were initially intended for use within the FCO, but some of the more substantial among them, studies that offer fresh insights into British diplomacy, are now being declassified for publication.
Britain and the Revolutions in Eastern Europe, 1989: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series III, Volume XII
1st Edition
Edited
By Richard Smith
May 31, 2023
This volume documents the UK Government’s response to the unfolding social and political changes in Eastern Europe during 1989.The year 1989 saw momentous change in Europe. It was the year in which Communist rule in Eastern Europe finally ended: with mass demonstrations, an end to one-Party rule, ...
The Polish Crisis and Relations with Eastern Europe, 1979-1982: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series III, Volume X
1st Edition
Edited
By Isabelle Tombs, Richard Smith
May 31, 2023
This volume presents a collection of diplomatic documents describing Britain’s relations with Eastern Europe from 1979 to 1982, with special focus on the crisis in Poland.After coming to power in 1979, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher reaffirmed a policy of ‘differentiation’ between...
The Unwinding of Apartheid: UK-South African Relations, 1986-1990: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series III, Volume XI
1st Edition
Edited
By Patrick Salmon
May 31, 2023
This volume examines diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and South Africa from 1986 to 1990, when deadlock gave way to the first stages in the unwinding of apartheid.By the middle of 1986, the South African Government had succeeded in containing the township revolt, but its hesitant ...
European Recovery and the Search for Western Security, 1946-1948: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series I, Volume XI
1st Edition
Edited
By Gill Bennett, Patrick Salmon
September 30, 2020
This volume documents the British Government’s response from mid-1946 to early 1948 to the twin challenges of economic recovery and the search for a meaningful Western security framework in the face of the increasing polarisation of Europe into Eastern and Western spheres of influence.Although ...
Transformational Diplomacy after the Cold War: Britain’s Know How Fund in Post-Communist Europe, 1989-2003
1st Edition
By Keith Hamilton
August 23, 2018
This book examines the 'Know How Fund', Britain’s bilateral technical assistance programme in post-communist central and eastern Europe, devised in response to the end of the Cold War. The Know How Fund (KHF) was the technical assistance programme which Margaret Thatcher’s government launched in ...
The Challenge of Apartheid: UK–South African Relations, 1985–1986: Documents on British Policy Overseas. Series III, Volume IX
1st Edition
Edited
By Patrick Salmon
April 09, 2018
This volume examines diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and South Africa during one of the most turbulent periods of the apartheid era. The crisis of apartheid that began in 1984 provoked international outrage on an unprecedented scale. This volume documents the attempt by the British ...
Detente in Europe, 1972-1976: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series III, Volume III
1st Edition
Edited
By Gill Bennett, Keith A. Hamilton
January 20, 2016
Drawing on records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, this work focuses on Britain's role in the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions in Vienna, and British policy towards the Soviet Union and its satellites. British reactions to detente between the superpowers are charted....
Berlin in the Cold War, 1948-1990: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series III, Vol. VI
1st Edition
Edited
By Keith Hamilton, Patrick Salmon
July 31, 2015
This volume consists of a book and downloadable resources containing a facsimile collection of diplomatic documents covering British reactions to critical developments regarding Berlin, its quadripartite administration, and role in the Cold War during the crises of 1948-49, 1959-61 and 1988-90. ...
In Victory, Magnanimity, in Peace, Goodwill: A History of Wilton Park
1st Edition
By Richard Mayne
September 11, 2014
Wilton Park was once a secret camp for interrogating enemy generals during World War II. But it took on its true, unique role in 1946 as a training centre for German prisoners-of-war. This volume tells of its history and the extraordinary life of Heinz Koeppler, its founding father....
The Brussels and North Atlantic Treaties, 1947-1949: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series I, Volume X
1st Edition
Edited
By Tony Insall, Patrick Salmon
August 18, 2014
This volume documents the drafting, negotiation and signature of the treaty that has been the cornerstone of European defence for the past sixty-five years: the North Atlantic Treaty signed in April 1949. The story begins at the end of 1947, when the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, ...
Britain and China 1945-1950: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series I Volume VIII
1st Edition
Edited
By S.R. Ashton, G. Bennett, K. Hamilton
July 17, 2014
An examination of Britain's relations with China from the end of the World War II to the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. This volume demonstrates how Britain's effort to recover something of its pre-war commercial pre-eminence in China were handicapped by its post-war financial weakness....
The Southern Flank in Crisis, 1973-1976: Series III, Volume V: Documents on British Policy Overseas
1st Edition
Edited
By Keith Hamilton, Patrick Salmon
July 17, 2014
A fascinating collection of British foreign policy documents covering reactions in Whitehall to political change and revolution in the Mediterranean basin from 1973 to 1976. This volume contains many previously unpublished documents, including Joint Intelligence Committee papers, which cast new ...