T. G. Otte is Professor of Diplomatic History at the University of East Anglia. He is the author or editor of fourteen books; among the more recent are The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894 1905 (2007), The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and (ed.) Diplomacy and Power: Studies in Modern Diplomatic Practice (2012). He is one of the leading international historians and has been an adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.