Political decisions are never taken in a vacuum but are shaped both by current
events and historical context. In other words, long-term developments and
patterns in which the accumulated memory of what came earlier, can greatly (and
sometimes subconsciously) influence subsequent policy choices. Working forward
from the later seventeenth century, this book explores the ‘deep history’ of
the changing and competing understandings within the Tory party of the role
Britain has aspired to play on a world stage. Conservatism has long been one of
the major British political tendencies, committed to the defence of established
institutions, with a strong sense of the ‘national interest’, and embracing
both ‘liberal’