内容简介：
由英国皇家文书局（Her Majesty’s Stationery Office）授权，伦敦政治经济学院(LSE) Kenneth Bourne 、D. Cameron Watt、Paul Preston与萨里大学 (University of Surrey) Michael Partridge等历史学家通力合作编辑，美国University Publications of America（简称UPA）出版了一系列现藏于英国国家档案馆 （The National Archives）的《英国外交部外交事务绝密文件》（British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print，简称BDFA），汇编了大量外交文书（diplomatic dispatches）、报告、电报等类型的第一手资源，还包括报纸、演讲稿、宣传手册、各国政府文件、有关经济方面的统计数据、人口统计报告、访谈手稿、领导人正式、非正式的谈话记录等内容，时间覆盖1850 -1956年。其内容十分丰富，按地区与主题分为13个系列，共655卷文件。地区系列收录7个地区的文件，包括：俄国/苏联、中东、北美、拉美、亚洲、非洲与欧洲；主题系列共6个，包括：一战、二战、巴黎和会、国际联盟、国际组织、经济事务、文化宣传和改革。这些珍贵、权威的史料，对19、20世纪的历史、外交、政治、军事、经济与社会研究，具有很高的学术价值与参考价值。
7个地区系列分别按时间分为5个部分，第一部，时间覆盖从19世纪中叶至一战；第二部，时间覆盖两次世界大战期间；第三部，时间覆盖二战期间，1940-1945年；第四部，时间覆盖1946-1950年；第五部，时间覆盖1951-1956年。
在各卷的卷首都有总编辑撰写的导言，各系列都有各系列编辑写的导言，按时间顺序梳理出各系列中的重大历史事件， 还附有一张表格，详细记录了每份档案中涉及时间、作者以及主题等信息。
档案目录：
- Series A:Russia/The Soivet Union（英国外交部档案：俄国/苏联事务）
- Part I: Russia/The Soviet Union ,1859-1914（共6卷）
- Part II: Russia/The Soviet Union ,1917-1939（共17卷）
- Part III: Russia/The Soviet Union ,1940-1945（共6卷）
- Part IV: Russia/The Soviet Union, 1946-1950（共7卷）
- Part V: Russia/The Soviet Union, 1951-1956（共6卷）
- Series B:The Near and Middle East（英国外交部档案：中近东事务 ）
- Part I: The Near and Middle East, 1856-1914（共20卷）
- Part II: The Near and Middle East, 1918-1939（共35卷）
- Part III: The Near and Middle East, 1940-1945（共10卷）
- Part IV: The Near and Middle East, 1946-1950（共10卷）
- Part V: The Near and Middle East, 1951-1956（共12卷）
- Series C:North America（英国外交部档案：北美事务）
- Part I: North America, 1837-1914（共15卷）
- Part II: North America, 1919-1939（共25卷）
- Part III: North America, 1940-1945（共5卷）
- Part IV: North America, 1946-1950（共4卷）
- Part V: North America, 1951-1956（共6卷）
- Series D: Latin America（英国外交部档案：拉美事务）
- Part I: Latin America, 1845-1914（共9卷）
- Part II: Latin America, 1914-1939（共20卷）
- Part III: Latin America, 1940-1945（共11卷）
- Part IV: Latin America, 1946-1950（共8卷）
- Part V: Latin America, 1951-1956（共6卷）
- Series E:Asia（英国外交部档案：亚洲事务）
- Part I: Asia, 1860-1914（共30卷）
- Part II: Asia, 1914-1939（共50卷）
- Part III: Asia, 1940-1945（共8卷）
- Part IV: Asia, 1946-1950（共11卷）
- Part V: Asia, 1951-1956 （共11卷）
- Series F:Europe（英国外交部档案：欧洲事务）
- Part I: Europe, 1848-1914（共35卷）
- Part II: Europe, 1919-1939（共67卷）
- Part III: Europe, 1940-1945（共26卷）
- Part IV: Europe, 1946-1950（共27卷）
- Part V: Europe, 1951-1956（共25卷）
- Series G: Africa（英国外交部档案：非洲事务）
- Part I: Africa from the Mid-19th Century to the First World War （共25卷）
- Part II: Africa from the First to the Second World War（共30卷）
- Part III: Africa, 1940-1945（共5卷）
- Part IV: Africa, 1946-1950（共5卷）
- Part V: Africa, 1951-1956（共7卷）
- Series H:The First World War, 1914-1918（英国外交部档案：第一次世界大战）（共12卷）
- Series I: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919（英国外交部档案：巴黎和会）（共15卷）
- Series J:The League of Nations（英国外交部档案：国际联盟（共10卷）
- Series K:Economic Affairs and the Reform of the Foreign Office （英国外交部档案：经济事务、文化宣传和改革）（共4卷）
- Series L:World War II and General, 1940-1945（英国外交部档案：第二次世界大战
- Part III, 1940- 1945（共5卷）
- Series M: International Organizations, Commonwealth Affairs, and General（英国外交部档案：国际组织）
- Part IV: 1946-1950（共6卷）
- Part V: 1951-1956（共3卷）
用户评价：
The publication of a large-scale edition of selections from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, under the supervision of Kenneth Bourne and D. Cameron Watt, is exciting news for historians, for these papers will not only throw valuable new light on the relations between the Foreign Office and its missions abroad but are bound to be an extraordinary source of information about political, economic, and social conditions in the countries where such missions were located. The African and Latin American materials alone promise to open up wide new vistas. As for the editors, a more distinguished team could not have been selected.
-Gordon A. Craig
J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, Stanford University
Past President, American Historical Association
The reproduction of a substantial selection of the contents of the Foreign Office Confidential Print will provide a valuable service to scholars. It makes available to them the contents of a large archive which is of the greatest importance for the study of many questions in the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Confidential Print, inaugurated by the Foreign Office in the mid-nineteenth century, contains all of the substantial dispatches and reports received from British embassies and legations throughout the world. It thus constitutes a magnificent source for the study not only of the conduct of the foreign policy of Great Britain, but also of the political, economic, and social condition of the countries in which Great Britain was represented. In this last respect the Print is especially rich in materials on Africa, the Middle East, China, Japan, Latin America, the United States, and Russia, as well as on the European nations.
The selection is being supervised by Professor Kenneth Bourne and Professor D. Cameron Watt, of the London School of Economics and Political Science. In view of their familiarity with the archive and their eminence as historians, it could not be in better hands.
-F. H. Hinsley
Master of St. John’s College and Professor of the History of International Relations, University of Cambridge
Splendid news! The Confidential Print is one of the prime sources for a student of the international history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, whether his subject of study is diplomacy or politics or economics or social life. And no two better editors could have been chosen.
-Ernest R. May
Charles Warren Professor of History, Harvard University
President, Society for the History of American Foreign Relation
The publication of selections from the Foreign Office Confidential Print for the last two centuries is a monumental undertaking, and the scholarly community will be in great debt to the editors and publisher of the series. The reputations of the editors as Britain’s leading diplomatic historians will be a guarantee not only of the scholarly quality but also of the usefulness of this series to scholars the world over.
-Hana W. Gatzke
Professor of History, Yale University