A chronological history of Modern Europe from 1914 to the present.

In 1899, the United States declared the Open Door policy, proclaiming its commitment to the preservation of China's national integrity. A year later, the United States helped to quash the Boxer rebellion in Peking, a revolt which had threatened American business interests. Of these two contradictory aims displayed by U.S. foreign policy—generous friendship and aggressive self-interest—it is the latter that has prevailed and defined American policy toward China, maintains Chinese historian Arnold Xiangze Jiang. The United States and China is the first comprehensive study in English of the tumultuous history of Sino-American relations from a Chinese perspective. Jiang critically examines U.S. foreign policy toward China from the eighteenth century to the Reagan-Deng years, illustrating how America's presence, influence, and pressure have shaped the history and politics of China. At the same time, Jiang's account is an illuminating and insightful synthesis of Chinese historiography since 1949—history as it has been taught in the People's Republic of China.

David Lloyd George left a profound political legacy, despite being described by the wife of his successor, Herbert Asquith, as a 'gambler without foresight'. He is, of course, best known as the Prime Minister who led Britain to victory in World War I, but his contribution to domestic politics was similarly impressive. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he introduced pensions and national insurance against sickness and unemployment, while as Prime Minister he extended democracy by giving votes to women. Yet Lloyd George was compromised by his flaws as a human being. Vain, cruel, capricious and dishonest, at times his notoriously corrupt nature threatened to damage the British political system. Providing a unique new perspective on one of the most phenomenally-talented - but also one of the most phenomenally-flawed - of British Prime Ministers, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern British politics and history.

This is the first full-length scholarly study of the Chinese 'core' leader and his role in the Chinese Communist Party's elite politics.

In an attempt to explain the seemingly a priori antagonisms of the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, Natural Enemies stands apart from previous literature on the topic. Looking at modern European history and the rise of the United States as a super-power, Robert C. Grogin contends that the Cold War eventually arose out of the clash of two ideologically motivated political systems. Grogin helps us see how the conflict between an American, Wilsonian-inspired politics and Soviet Leninist ideology developed into a gulf that was bound to be antagonistic from the start. The various postwar crises and failed attempts at detente frame this struggle, as Grogin charts the geopolitical trajectory of the conflict until its final dissolution. With an eye toward understanding the impact of this period on subsequent world events, Natural Enemies presents an integrated and original interpretation of Cold War history.