The British Council and British cultural diplomacy 1934-1959: a new form of diplomacy?

Abstract

ABSTRACT There are grounds for considering the creation of the British Council in the interwar period as a manifestation of post-World War One internationalism and the search for a ‘new diplomacy’. Yet, as an arms-length body established by the Foreign Office (FO), it was expected to support not supplant traditional diplomats. If the creation of a body dedicated to cultural relations did indeed represent a new departure for British diplomacy, to what new destinations did it hope to carry that diplomacy? Focusing on the first decades of the Council’s existence, this article shows that the British Council’s growing commitment to cultural internationalism did not prevent it from continuing to function as a vector for British cultural propaganda. It also argues that the transition to Commonwealth did not diminish a commitment to the Empire, and shows the importance of recognising the tensions at work within the model of cultural internationalism adopted by the Council given that development would represent an increasingly significant proportion of its work from the 1960s onwards.