Documents from the UK Foreign Office

Foreign policy initiates action and responds to external stimuli in complex patterns of motivation and causal relationships that are the products of national culture. An essential part of the diplomat’s work must therefore be analysis of the domestic conditions of the country of accredition. British diplomats, like their counterparts from other nations, make such reports as a matter of routine. The Foreign Office Confidential Prints contain rich veins of material relating to the political, economic and social affairs of the United States between 1919 and 1945, and this collection of 30 bound volumes makes them generally accessible for the first time. At some periods, as when the New Deal is launched in the spring of 1933, the prints focus on American domestic affairs and foreign affairs during the Second World War. They provide a magnificent view of the evolution of New Deal and foreign relations policies. Most of the documents in this collections are organized chronologically, but some volumes cover a specific theme such as the enforcement of prohibition and immigration controls, the American press, and Latin American and the Philippines. In general, this collection is revealing about British Foreign Office attitudes towards the United States, and offers remarkable insight into the domestic life of the United States as well as into the details of diplomatic negotiation.