A world-renowned British stateman, Arthur James Balfour is best known as Prime Minister and signer of the Balfour Declaration, calling for a national home for Jews in Palestine. Less well known are his initiatives in creating a structure for strategic planning, preparation for, and fighting a war, the Committee of Imperial Defence, and chairing the committee which articulated the basis for the constitution of the British Commonwealth of Nations. This book provides the most extensive survey of the literature by and about Balfour.

The first section of the book, a historiographical narrative, surveys the important literature, integrating historical and biographical events, criticisms, evaluations, and observations of reviewers along with those of the writer. It surveys books, monographs, official histories, government publications, memoirs, diaries, dissertations, bibliographies, pertinent articles from journals, collections of unpublished papers, manuscript collections, and archival and research holdings. The second section provides an annotated bibliography of the 500 items discussed in the historiographical narrative.