This landmark study of European international politics is a worthy complement to A.J.P. Taylor's classic The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918. Paul Schroeder's comprehensive and authoritative addition to the Oxford History of Modern Europe charts the course of international history over the turbulent era of 1763-1848 in which the map of Europe and much of the world was redrawn time and again. Schroeder examines the wars, political crises, and intricate diplomatic transactions of the age, many of which, especially the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the Congress of Vienna and its aftermath, had far-reaching consequences for modern Europe.
Schroeder also provides a new sharply revisionist account of the course of international politics over these years and a major reinterpretation of the structure and operation of the international system. He shows how the practice of international politics was transformed in revolutionary ways with extensive and beneficial effects. The Vienna Settlement established peace, he demonstrates, by abandoning, not restoring, the competitive balance-of-power politics of the eighteenth century, and devising a new political equilibrium in its stead. A European consensus on a new political balance was developed, with new rules to maintain it, ushering in a uniquely peaceful, progressive period in European international politics. This wide-ranging and penetrating study will be of great interest to historians, political scientists, and students of international relations.

From Library Journal

Presupposing considerable background and frequently taking issue with conventional wisdom, this important historical interpretation of international relations focuses almost entirely on the aims and tactics of statesmen responsible for foreign policy. Schroeder (Univ. of Illinois) argues, in great detail and with formidable scholarship, that a third of a century of great power equilibrium was achieved only because the players learned the hard way that balance-of-power politics, with its constantly shifting alliances, led only to war, not security. Revolutionary change in international behavior, not the restoration of old ways, came with the Congress of Vienna. Acceptance of hegemony by states unequal in power, new developments in international law, and broader international consensus permitted peace and progress. Essential for academic libraries.
- R. James Tobin, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Milwaukee
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Narratively, the tangles of this diplomatic story touch on France, from its abject position at the conclusion of the Seven Years War through its recovery and overweening expansion as a Napoleonic empire, culminating in its accommodation to the new state system of the congress of Vienna. Analytically, the author devotes his text to appraising that new system aborning more than the 85 years covered here, during which statesmen gradually shed balance-of-power politics for an early form of collective security. In punctilious detail, Schroeder explains the fears and aspirations--and the strategems to allay or effect them--pursued by each great power. Thus, his book is 95 percent cogitation, 5 percent action; it rushes forward for a page, then takes 10 to explain what just happened, such as the chronic question of Poland (partitioned) or the Ottoman Empire (almost so), or Napoleon and Alexander I's ill-fated Tilsit deal of 1807. Stolid and serious, this nuanced addition to Oxford's well-regarded History of Modern Europe series should stand a long test of time. Gilbert Taylor