Foreign policy and national identity in the United Kingdom

William Wallace attributes the divide over foreign policy running through the British political elite to two alternative views of Britain's national identity and role in international politics. He explores the European and the Anglo-Saxon versions of Britain's myth of nationhood, and argues that adherence to the theme of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism will continue to exert deep strains on British foreign policy until the confusion between the two conceptions of Britain's role is sorted out and the present is disentangled from the past.