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This book offers a detailed investigation of the influence of public opinion and national identity on the foreign policies of France, Britain and the Netherlands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The quarter-century of upheaval and warfare in Europe between the outbreak of the French Revolution and fall of Napoleon saw important developments in understandings of nation, public, and popular sovereignty, which spilled over into how people viewed their governments-and how governments viewed their people.
By investigating the ideas and impulses behind Dutch, French and British foreign policy in a comparative context across a range of royal, revolutionary and republican regimes, this book offers new insights into the importance of public opinion and national identities to international relations at the end of the long eighteenth century.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 1785-1815.- 2. France, Britain and the Netherlands, 1785-1815.- 3. Public Opinion and National Identity in the Netherlands.- 4. Public Opinion, National Identity and Dutch Foreign Policy.- 5.'Canaux, Canards, Canaille'? French Public Opinion and the Netherlands.- 6. Public Opinion, National Identity and French Foreign Policy.- 7. Another 'Other': British Public Opinion, National Identity and the Netherlands.- 8. Public Opinion, National Identity and British Foreign Policy.- 8. Conclusion.
About the author
Graeme Callister is Lecturer in History at York St John University, UK. Before taking this post, he had studied at universities in Britain, France and South Africa, and taught as a tutor at the Universities of Durham and York.
Summary
This book offers a detailed investigation of the influence of public opinion and national identity on the foreign policies of France, Britain and the Netherlands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The quarter-century of upheaval and warfare in Europe between the outbreak of the French Revolution and fall of Napoleon saw important developments in understandings of nation, public, and popular sovereignty, which spilled over into how people viewed their governments—and how governments viewed their people.
By investigating the ideas and impulses behind Dutch, French and British foreign policy in a comparative context across a range of royal, revolutionary and republican regimes, this book offers new insights into the importance of public opinion and national identities to international relations at the end of the long eighteenth century.
