This book is a pioneering study of a little-known aspect of British foreign policy between the wars. Essentially, it is an examination of the peacetime origins and early development of what are today loosely termed Britain's Overseas Information Services. Accordingly, the book traces the work of the Foreign Office News Department and its important press office, the commercial propaganda conducted by such organisations as the Empire Marketing Board, the Travel Association and the Industrial Publicity Unit, the foundation and rapid expansion of the British Council, and the origins of the bbc's World and External services. It is not, however, designed to provide a definitive history of Britain's world-wide propaganda activities during the twenty years of peace that followed the First World War. Nor does this book aspire to be comprehensive in its treatment of the issues it does examine. Rather, it is intended to be a preliminary investigation into those official and semi-official organisations which were established to ‘project’ Britain abroad, the reasons for their creation, and the peculiar features which characterised such work.

Despite considerable scholarly interest in this subject during the inter-war period itself, historians, at least in the United Kingdom, have only recently begun to appreciate the importance of studying propaganda and its impact upon public opinion as part of our understanding of the twentieth century. There is still a long way to go before the subject earns the credibility its significance deserves. Few textbooks or general historical surveys dealing with the period devote more than a brief mention to the British government's activities in this direction, and even then it is usually in the context of the First and Second World Wars.