This is the latest volume of Jeremy Black's authoritative examinations of British eighteenth-century foreign policy, one grounded in an unparalleled familiarity with the international sources for his subject (not to mention the totality of the secondary sources), and a mature, reliable assessment of events. Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I has two characteristic features of Black's writings that should particularly commend it: first, its deeply contextualized reading of policy making and implementation that never loses sight of the contingent dimension; secondly, its harmonious interweaving of foreign and domestic party politics in a manner that makes more sense of both. The book is chronologically organized after an opening chapter that discusses the means of policy making and the different levels at which debates on foreign policy were conducted.

The arrival of a new dynasty on the British throne in August 1714 had profound implications for foreign policy for the incoming sovereign, Georg Ludwig, elector of Hanover, had strong views based on a long experience of European power politics. The incoming Whig administration he nominated, composed of politicians who had deplored the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) negotiated by their Tory predecessors, had endorsed George I's opposition to ending the Grand Alliance. Yet the vulnerability of the Hanoverian dynasty, the death of Louis XIV, and the containment of the Jacobite challenge in the 1715 Rebellion, speedily pushed British policy in unforeseen directions. And that was without the king's own concern for the well-being of the Electorate he had just quitted, one that unavoidably required the Whigs to give the Baltic during the latter stages of the Great Northern War (1700–21) an unprecedented importance in their deliberations. Black is less ready than other recent historians to see the Hanoverian commitment as anything other than difficult; indeed at one point (73) he refers to it “an incubus comparable to Silesia under Frederick the Great,” at another (199) “a strategic burden.” And he shrewdly presents the Quadruple Alliance as one that could be said to please both Whigs and Tories as the culmination of the Utrech settlement.

A distinctive strength of this volume for students is that gives as much space to the 1720s as it does to the preceding period; even the years 1722–24, in the immediate aftermath of the failed Atterbury Ploy, are scrutinized, those generally overlooked years when there were actually serious disputes in and outside the government over foreign policy matters. George I remained personally concerned about Russia's growing influence in northern Europe and its implications for the security of his Electorate, while the whole government was anxious about how far the amity with France could be maintained following the death of the regent d'Orléans and the uncertainty about French policy intentions with the duc de Bourbon at the helm. Ever aware of the contingency of things, Black teases out the possibilities, points out what did not occur (but might easily have done so), and reminds us not to let our knowledge of what did obscure our awareness of the choices facing British policy makers in the 1720s. Fear, or at least apprehension, of the worst that could happen was often present in policy calculations, as with the concern felt over the first treaty of Vienna between Spain and Austria in 1725, as the ministry registered a sense that the country's relative position in Europe had fallen and war with Spain had become next to unavoidable.

Black observes that “the attribute that is most necessary today in the analysis of the situation under George is a granulated one that is alert to specific circumstances, differing developments, and controverted, not to say contradictory, views” (265). And consistently in this volume he is as good as his word. This is an assured study of foreign policy that is both nuanced and accessible, one with solid archival foundations provided by an author whose personal familiarity with them makes him alert to areas where sources are lacking, and where further research would be in order, as on stock markets and their influence. Black is excellent on ministerial changes and their significance and never overlooks the importance of party politics aptly citing the ministerial pamphlet The Defection Consider'd that “foreigners with amazement look on these divisions.” The book is full of interesting aperçus, such as some judicious comments about diplomatic gossip and the ways it was fanned by the representatives of the smaller states. In sum, Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I is up there with the best of Jeremy Black's books on eighteenth-century international relations.