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This book is first and foremost a history of ruling-class diplomacy, but other factors are not ignored: the Bolsheviks, the Turks, and the insurgencies in Europe. This book provides detailed narrative and cogent analysis of the all that happened in Paris in 1919 and all that came out of it, with the aftermath of the peace process and the difficulty of avoiding war for twenty years. This book falls into two parts. Part 1 shows how the peacemakers and their successors dealt with the problems of a shattered Europe. The war had fundamentally altered both the internal structures of many of the European states and transformed the traditional order. The book shows that the management of the European state system in the decade after 1919, while in some ways resembling that of the past, assumed a shape that distinguished it both from the pre-war decades and the post-1933 period. Part II covers the ‘hinge years’ 1929 to 1933. These were the years in which many of the experiments in internationalism came to be tested and their weakness revealed. Many of the difficulties stemmed from the enveloping economic depression. The way was open to the movements towards étatism, autarcy, virulent nationalism, and expansionism which characterized the post-1933 European scene. The events of these years were critical to both Hitler's challenge to the European status quo and the reactions of the European statesmen to his assault on what remained of an international system.

This book traces the twisted road to war that began with Adolf Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Covering a wide geographical canvas, from America to the Far East, this book provides a reassessment of the most disputed events of these tumultuous years. It underlines the far-reaching consequences of the Great Depression, which shifted the initiative in international affairs from those who upheld the status quo to those who were intent on destroying it. In Europe, the 1930s were Hitler's years. He moved the major chess pieces on the board, forcing the others to respond. From the start, the book argues, he intended war, and he repeatedly gambled on Germany's future to acquire the necessary resources to fulfil his continental ambitions. Only war could have stopped him — an unwelcome message for most of Europe. Misperception, miscomprehension, and misjudgment on the part of the other Great Powers leaders opened the way for Hitler's repeated successes in the area of diplomacy. It is ideology that distinguished the Hitler era from previous struggles for the mastery of Europe. Ideological presumptions created false images and raised barriers to understanding that even good intelligence could not penetrate. Only when the leaders of Britain and France realised the scale of Hitler's ambition, and the challenge Germany posed to their Great Power status, did they finally declare war.

Neorealists argue that all states aim to acquire power and that state cooperation can therefore only be temporary, based on a common opposition to a third country. This view condemns the world to endless conflict for the indefinite future. Based upon careful attention to actual historical outcomes, this book contends that, while some countries and leaders have demonstrated excessive power drives, others have essentially underplayed their power and sought less position and influence than their comparative strength might have justified. Featuring case studies from across the globe, History and Neorealism examines how states have actually acted. The authors conclude that leadership, domestic politics, and the domain (of gain or loss) in which they reside play an important role along with international factors in raising the possibility of a world in which conflict does not remain constant and, though not eliminated, can be progressively reduced.

This article reflects on the changing discipline of diplomatic history/international history through the author's own experience in the field since the 1950s. It also draws wider lessons about the craft, especially the importance of understanding the people behind the papers - illustrated with vignettes of diplomats whom the author interviewed, including Harold Nicolson, William Strang and Owen O'Malley. Woven into this is some discussion of the author's own books, especially those on the pre-1914 Foreign Office, Britain and the origins of the First World War and, most recently, her two volumes on Europe's international relations between the world wars.