Table of Contents

Introduction
1: Challenging Communism: Britain sends land forces to Korea, July 1950
2: Challenging Nasser: the Suez crisis, July 1956
3: Challenging de Gaulle: Britain applies to join the EEC, July 1961
4: Challenging Britain's world role: the decision to withdraw from East of Suez, January 1968
5: Challenging the KGB: Operation FOOT, September 1971
6: Challenging the Argentines: The decision to send a Task Force to the Falklands, April 1982
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Gill Bennett, MA, OBE was Chief Historian of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office from 1995-2005, and Senior Editor of the UK's official history of British foreign policy, Documents on British Policy Overseas. As a historian working in government for over thirty years, she offered historical advice to twelve Foreign Secretaries under six Prime Ministers. A specialist in the history of secret intelligence, she was part of the research team working on
the official history of the Secret Intelligence Service, written by Professor Keith Jeffery and published in 2010. She is now involved in a range of research, writing and training projects for various government
departments.

Reviews

`Gill Bennett possesses a very special gift. She can make old documents live and breathe. In this fine study she takes us into Number 10 and the Cabinet room and we are literally transported - we can see and hear the people, feel the tension, and hear the arguments.'
Peter Hennessy
`Impressive. This is a portrait of a formerly great power wrestling with decline.'
Douglas Hurd, the New Statesman
`Bennett's book is a living example of the importance of history, not just in the context of how and why these decisions were made, but in providing a guide to the complex, and at times misleading phrase: 'lessons of history'.'
Keith Simpson, Total Politics
`Fascinating.'
Philip Stephens, the Financial Times
`[A] masterly study... Besides providing many insights into leading policy-makers, Gill Bennett covers six major 'moments of crisis' spread over a period of more than 30 years in only 175 pages of text without ever oversimplifying. Her book is both a very good read and admirably succinct.'
Christopher Andrew, Literary Review
`A wonderful text for the student of international relations, whom it will immunise against infection by arcane concepts and theories that bear little relation to the real world. It is, moreover, beautifully written and an object lesson for academics in history and the social sciences.'
Vernon Bogdanor, Times Higher Education Supplement
`Oxonian Bennett (Somerville, 1969) lifts the lid on how six crucial decisions were taken, and not just why. She concludes that British foreign policy is subject to deep continuity.'
Oxford Today Vol. 25 No. 2