The following address, revised slightly here for publication, was delivered at an international conference to mark the retirement of Donald Cameron Watt from the Stevenson Chair of International History at the London School of Economics. Held in June 1993, the conference was entitled ‘Historians and Officials: the development of international history in Britain and the world’. As a measure of Professor Watt's standing, many distinguished historians from around the world attended to deliver papers, including Christopher Andrew, Peter Calvocoressi, Alexander O. Chubarian, Frank Eyck, John Fair, Lawrence Friedman, John Gaddis, Rene Girault, Jonathan Haslam, Peter Hennessy, Sir Michael Howard, Paul Gordon Lauren, William Roger Louis, Gordon Martel, Ernest R. May, Wolfgang Mommsen, Ennio di Nolfo, R. A. C. Parker, Philip Reynolds, Zara Steiner and John Young. Almost as a foretaste for Dr Taylor's opening remarks, his paper was introduced by a former senior Foreign Office official who questioned the relevance o...