This article examines rhetoric and diplomacy around the concept of imperial “Splendid Isolation” in Britain under the prime ministership of Lord Salisbury in the 1890s and early 1900s. This ‘voguish’ diplomacy and rhetoric came to an end with the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902 — Britain’s first formal defensive alliance in decades, and Japan’s first ever military alliance with a European imperial power.
This article is an edited version of a section of my bachelor’s thesis, which compared British and Japanese isolationism in the 19th century.
Haus Lilienfeld 