An analysis of the Russian-French alliance of 1894 and what went wrong in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.

Excerpt from The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1890-1894 It may be objected that a definitive treatment of the problem cannot be undertaken until the-historian has more authentic material from the French, English and especially the Russian archives. The author has, of course, felt the dearth of Russian material very keenly in all stages of the work. But there is some consolation in the thought that the historian can never hope for exhaustive source material. The effort to reconstruct the past is worth making if the data available is reasonably abundant and relevant. The study here presented would never have been written unless the writer had been convinced that the material is quite sufficient to clear up the fundamental problems. He cannot believe that the publication of new material would destroy the basic lines of the argument. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In The Shadow of the Past, Gregory D. Miller examines the role that reputation plays in international politics, emphasizing the importance of reliability-confidence that, based on past political actions, a country will make good on its promises-in the formation of military alliances. Challenging recent scholarship that focuses on the importance of credibility-a state's reputation for following through on its threats-Miller finds that reliable states have much greater freedom in forming alliances than those that invest resources in building military force but then use it inconsistently. To explore the formation and maintenance of alliances based on reputation, Miller draws on insights from both political science and business theory to track the evolution of great power relations before the First World War. He starts with the British decision to abandon "splendid isolation" in 1900 and examines three crises--the First Moroccan Crisis (1905-6), the Bosnia-Herzegovina Crisis (1908-9), and the Agadir Crisis (1911)-leading up to the war. He determines that states with a reputation for being a reliable ally have an easier time finding other reliable allies, and have greater autonomy within their alliances, than do states with a reputation for unreliability. Further, a history of reliability carries long-term benefits, as states tend not to lose allies even when their reputation declines.

A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.