Since its first publication in 1980, Professor Kennedy's masterly account of the rivalry between Great Britain and Germany in the period leading to the First World War has established itself as the definitive work on the subject. Over ten years of research in more than sixty archives in Britain and Germany culminated in this full-scale, meticulous analysis. The result reaches far beyond a diplomatic narrative of relations between the two countries. It concerns itself with a thorough comparison of the two societies, their political cultures, economies, party politics, courts, the role of the press and pressure groups, and other factors. The work therefore contributes to the larger debate on the nature of foreign policy, as well as to the specific controversies over the British-German antagonisms that eventually led to war.

This book gives an account of the rivalry between Great Britain and Germany in the period leading to the First World War. It gives readers a thorough comparison of the two societies, their political cultures, economies, party politics, courts, the role of the press and pressure groups, and so on. It investigates the entire political structure within which diplomacy was conducted and seeks to establish the connection between long term background changes in the two countries and their rising antagonism. The work therefore contributes to the larger debate on the nature of foreign policy, as well as to that on the more specific controversies over Bismarck's imperialism, the Anglo-German naval race, trade rivalries, the role of the radical right, and the origins of the First World War. - Back cover.

Anglo-German Scholarly Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century explores the complex and shifting connections between scientists and scholars in Britain and Germany from the late eighteenth century to the interwar years. Based on the concept of the transnational network in both its informal and institutional dimensions, it deals with the transfer of knowledge and ideas in a variety of fields and disciplines. Furthermore, it examines the role which mutual perceptions and stereotypes played in Anglo-German collaboration. By placing Anglo-German scholarly networks in a wider spatial and temporal context, the volume offers new frames of reference which challenge the long-standing focus on the antagonism and breakdown of relations before and during the First World War. Contributors include Rob Boddice, John Davis, Peter Hoeres, Hilary Howes, Gregor Pelger, Pascal Schillings, Angela Schwarz, Tara Windsor.

Offering first major study of the views of the Conservative Party towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations from 1905 to 1914, it examines the Conservative response to the German threat, and argues that it showed a marked absence of open hostility towards Germany.

Paul Kennedy owes a great deal to the editor who persuaded him to add a final chapter to this study of the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of European powers since the age of Spain’s Philip II. This tailpiece indulged in what was, for an historian, a most unusual activity: it looked into the future. Pondering whether the United States would ultimately suffer the same decline as every imperium that preceded it, it was this chapter that made The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers a dinner party talking point in Washington government circles. In so doing, it elevated Kennedy to the ranks of public intellectuals whose opinions were canvassed on matters of state policy. From a strictly academic point of view, the virtues of Kennedy's work lie elsewhere, and specifically in his flair for asking the sort of productive questions that characterize a great problem-solver. Kennedy's work is an example of an increasingly rare genre – a work of comparative history that transcends the narrow confines of state– and era–specific studies to identify the common factors that underpin the successes and failures of highly disparate states. Kennedy's prime contribution is the now-famous concept of ‘imperial overstretch,’ the idea that empires fall largely because the military commitments they acquire during the period of their rise ultimately become too much to sustain once they lose the economic competitive edge that had projected them to dominance in the first place. Earlier historians may have glimpsed this central truth, and even applied it in studies of specific polities, but it took a problem-solver of Kennedy's ability to extend the analysis convincingly across half a millennium.

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.