The Great Powers and the European States System 1814-1914

Description

This book illuminates, in the form of a clear, well-paced and student-friendly analytical narrative,  the functioning of the European states system in its heyday, the crucial century between the  defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and the outbreak of the First World War just one hundred years later.  

In this substantially revised and expanded version of the text, the author has included the results of the latest research, a body of additional information and a number of carefully designed maps that will make the subject even more accessible to readers.

Contents
Contents
List of maps
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: The Character of International Relations 1814-1914
2. The Reconstruction of Europe and Alliance 1812-22
3. ‘Every Nation for Itself’, 1823-30
4. From Revolution to War, 1830-1856  
5. The Destruction of the Vienna Settlement In Germany And Italy, 1856-71
6. The Testing of the New Order 1871-79
7. The Conservative Powers Dominate the States System, 1879-95
8. Unstable Equilibrium, 1895-1911
9. Polarization and War, 1911-1914
Chronology
Bibliography

Features

• Substantially revised and expanded, the author has included the results of the latest research, a body of additional information and a number of carefully designed maps that will make the subject even more accessible to students
• Examines systems of active co-operation, such as the Congress System or the Concert of Europe
• Analyses periods of ‘international anarchy’ in which, if wars were endemic they were at least limited
• Discusses the stabilising effects of the predominance of conservative status quo powers in the Bismarckian era
• Covers the dangerously polarised system that emerged on the eve of the First World War

Author

Since 1999 F.R. Bridge has been Emeritus Professor of Diplomatic History at the University of Leeds.

His publications include: Great Britain and Austria Hungary 1906-1914: A Diplomatic history (London 1972) From Sadowa to Sarajevo:  The Foreign policy of Austria-Hungary 1866-1914 (London 1972);  (With Roger Bullen) The Great Powers and the European States System, 1815-1914,  (London, 1980.) ; 1914: The Coming of the First World War.   (London,  Historical Association, 1982) The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 1815-1918  (Oxford,  Berg Press,1991);  and numerous articles and parts of books in the field of international history.  

Reviews

''The book dissects the 'long nineteenth century', which straggled from the fall of Napoleon to the outbreak of the First World War. Its vantage point is foreign relations, and Bridge detects three distinct phases in this long century.''

Geoffrey Wawro, University of North Texas

'[This book] has the hallmarks of success stamped through it: breadth of scope, incisive analysis and a lightness of touch in the writing.'

Professor John Keiger, University of Salford

'This is a model of a good history book. It is very well written with a sharp analysis interwoven into the detailed narrative. It is also very accessible, with chapters broken down into distinct sections with a very good index which includes a separate section for key individuals.'

New Perspective - For History Students

'Solid and up-to-date in scholarship, clearly and engagingly written, factually accurate and comprehensive.Anything but a stale re-hashing of the old, well-worn facts about European diplomacy and wars. It is rather an interesting, skilfully woven account and analysis of political strategies and tactics over a whole rich century, full of penetrating judgments and insights and studied with apt quotations from original sources. The first requirement for understanding the nineteenth-century European International system, the history of which is still relevant today, remains knowing in reasonably concrete detail what actually happened and how the international game was played.'

Paul W Schroeder - University of Illinois