This book closes an obvious gap in nineteenth-century historiography by carefully analysing British policy and public opinion with regard to the Schleswig-Holstein problem from 1848 to 1864. Solidly based on a study of private and public correspondence, memoirs, biographies, newspapers, periodicals, sessional papers, foreign office documents, and parliamentary debates, it argues that the failure of British policy was due to division and uncertainty of opinion. Britain vacillated between a pliant and a defiant course and eventually chose to worst features of both. Professor Sandiford demonstrates that the failure of Russell's Schleswig-Holstein diplomacy in 1864 was largely the result of a long sequence of British miscalculations dating back at least to 1848. He also shows that the general bewilderment, both within and outside the British Parliament, permitted the queen and a handful of her ministers to exert more influence on Britain's policy in 1863-4 than has previously been supposed.

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1848 was a turbulent but momentous time in Europe. Within this context, the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were caught between the rising nationalism and desire for unification of the Prussian/German nation states and the traditional alliances with the Danish Kingdom. The Schleswig Holsteiners decided that allegiance with the German Federation, including possessing their own constitution, was the best way forward. They rebelled against the Danish and looked to the Prussians with their greater military prowess for help. In Denmark, as in other European countries, the call for a democratic constitution caused social disturbance, triggered initially by the February riots in Paris. The Danish monarchy, in crisis, both constitutionally and in terms of monarchical succession continued to lay claim on their southernmost duchies and sent their armed forces to destroy the Schleswig-Holstein insurgents. The author describes the battles and battlefields upon which this crisis was played out: from the first major action at Bov (9 April, 1848) to the last major battles of the war, at Isted (25 July 1850) and Missunde (12 September 1850), from the geomorphic landscape influencing battlefield strategy down to the description of a farmhouse where Prussian officers jumped out of windows to save themselves from the Danish.

Why do great powers accommodate the rise of some challengers but contain and confront others, even at the risk of war? When Right Makes Might proposes that the ways in which a rising power legitimizes its expansionist aims significantly shapes great power responses. Stacie E. Goddard theorizes that when faced with a new challenger, great powers will attempt to divine the challenger’s intentions: does it pose a revolutionary threat to the system or can it be incorporated into the existing international order? Goddard departs from conventional theories of international relations by arguing that great powers come to understand a contender’s intentions not only through objective capabilities or costly signals but by observing how a rising power justifies its behavior to its audience. To understand the dynamics of rising powers, then, we must take seriously the role of legitimacy in international relations. A rising power’s ability to expand depends as much on its claims to right as it does on its growing might. As a result, When Right Makes Might poses significant questions for academics and policymakers alike. Underpinning her argument on the oft-ignored significance of public self-presentation, Goddard suggests that academics (and others) should recognize talk’s critical role in the formation of grand strategy. Unlike rationalist and realist theories that suggest rhetoric is mere window-dressing for power, When Right Makes Might argues that rhetoric fundamentally shapes the contours of grand strategy. Legitimacy is not marginal to international relations; it is essential to the practice of power politics, and rhetoric is central to that practice.