Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Intrigue and Adventure

'The Inside Story of Britain's Diplomatic Missions Abroad.'

For a small island nation, Britain has been punching well above its weight on the international stage for over half a millennium. GETTING OUR WAY takes us through a dozen vivid chapters in Britain's history over the last 500 years, telling the story of diplomatic missions ranging from Splendid Isolation at the peak of its power in the late 19th Century to alliances with France and Russia to meet the threat of Imperial Germany to the overthrow of Saddam in 2003. Some of these episodes record triumph, some failure. But all of them illustrate how the three pillars of the national interest - security, prosperity and values - have been the foundation of British foreign policy for almost 500 years. What is more, Sir Christopher argues that the current trend for elevating fraudulent notions of the post-modern state and 'global values' at the expense of the unsentimental vision of national interest risks terminal damage to Britain's core interests in the world.