CHRIS COOK is a Visiting Research Fellow at the British Library of Political and Economic Science ; JOHN STEVENSON is a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Together the authors have collaborated on a number of projects including the Handbook of Modern European History, 1763-1997 (3rd edn, 1998) and, in a second series which looks at shorter, more focused periods, the Companion to Britain since 1945 (2nd edn, 2000).