This set focuses on the influential economic and political commentators who saw weaknesses in the infrastructure of the British Empire at the turn of the 20th century. Dubbed "Idealists of Empire", they saw that the British Empire seemed to have no governing principles, no structure and no guiding ideals. Sir John Seeley's famous quote of 1883 sums up this view: "we seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind". The mission of the idealists was to find an Imperial solution to this problem. The idealists of Empire documented their findings as they looked more systematically at the Empire's external challenges and internal workings, in terms of politics, economics and strategy. The texts published in this collection represent some important contributions to the early 20th-century debate on the fate of the Empire.

Having succeeded his uncle, Lord Salisbury, to become prime minister in 1902, Arthur Balfour is perhaps best known for the 'Balfour Declaration', which called for the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This is book looks at his time in government, as well as lasting legacy.