The twentieth century completely reconfigured global politics. These reconfigurations also transformed Britain’s international standing. This course examines the often-overlapping shifts behind this transformation – imperial decline, economic crises, world wars, Cold War, European integration. Using a foreign policy lens, it examines how successful Britain was in navigating global challenges; how it adapted its strategies and alliances as a result; and how the foreign policymaking process altogether evolved, from being mainly the domain of ambassadors to increasingly being shaped by individual prime ministers. In answering these questions, the course has three main aims. First, to offer students an overview of the international history of modern Britain; second, to establish a firm basis for further studies in foreign policy and/or British politics; third, to provide the conceptual tools necessary for understanding current political discourses. Topics include Edwardian foreign policy; Britain and the Mandates system; the influence of anti-communism; foreign policy responses to decolonization; the formation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy, including the Falklands War and the negotiations for Hong Kong’s handover; the Good Friday Agreement; and the Blair Doctrine. By the end of the course, students will therefore be able to critically assess the key policy decisions behind the individual events studied; analyse these decisions in order to discern broader trends in British policymaking; evaluate the relationships and dynamics that shaped Britain’s global standing; as well as analyse how historical thinking about British foreign policy has evolved as new evidence came to light.