The Origins of Major War

The Origins of Major War
Author: Dale C. Copeland
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2013-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0801467047

One of the most important questions of human existence is what drives nations to war—especially massive, system-threatening war. Much military history focuses on the who, when, and where of war. In this riveting book, Dale C. Copeland brings attention to bear on why governments make decisions that lead to, sustain, and intensify conflicts.Copeland presents detailed historical narratives of several twentieth-century cases, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. He highlights instigating factors that transcend individual personalities, styles of government, geography, and historical context to reveal remarkable consistency across several major wars usually considered dissimilar. The result is a series of challenges to established interpretive positions and provocative new readings of the causes of conflict.Classical realists and neorealists claim that dominant powers initiate war. Hegemonic stability realists believe that wars are most often started by rising states. Copeland offers an approach stronger in explanatory power and predictive capacity than these three brands of realism: he examines not only the power resources but the shifting power differentials of states. He specifies more precisely the conditions under which state decline leads to conflict, drawing empirical support from the critical cases of the twentieth century as well as major wars spanning from ancient Greece to the Napoleonic Wars.

The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars

The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars
Author: Robert Gilpin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1989-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521379557

This analysis of the origins of major wars, since the development of the modern state system in Europe centuries ago, also considers the problems involved in preventing a contemporary nuclear war.

War in European History

War in European History
Author: Michael Howard
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191570850

First published over thirty years ago, War in European History is a brilliantly written survey of the changing ways that war has been waged in Europe, from the Norse invasions to the present day. Far more than a simple military history, the book serves as a succinct and enlightening overview of the development of European society as a whole over the last millennium. From the Norsemen and the world of the medieval knights, through to the industrialized mass warfare of the twentieth century, Michael Howard illuminates the way in which warfare has shaped the history of the Continent, its effect on social and political institutions, and the ways in which technological and social change have in turn shaped the way in which wars are fought. This new edition includes a fully updated further reading and a new final chapter bringing the story into the twenty-first century, including the invasion of Iraq and the so-called 'War against Terror'.

The Russian Origins of the First World War

The Russian Origins of the First World War
Author: Sean McMeekin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2013-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674072332

The catastrophe of the First World War, and the destruction, revolution, and enduring hostilities it wrought, make the issue of its origins a perennial puzzle. Since World War II, Germany has been viewed as the primary culprit. Now, in a major reinterpretation of the conflict, Sean McMeekin rejects the standard notions of the war’s beginning as either a Germano-Austrian preemptive strike or a “tragedy of miscalculation.” Instead, he proposes that the key to the outbreak of violence lies in St. Petersburg. It was Russian statesmen who unleashed the war through conscious policy decisions based on imperial ambitions in the Near East. Unlike their civilian counterparts in Berlin, who would have preferred to localize the Austro-Serbian conflict, Russian leaders desired a more general war so long as British participation was assured. The war of 1914 was launched at a propitious moment for harnessing the might of Britain and France to neutralize the German threat to Russia’s goal: partitioning the Ottoman Empire to ensure control of the Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Nearly a century has passed since the guns fell silent on the western front. But in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, World War I smolders still. Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Jews, and other regional antagonists continue fighting over the last scraps of the Ottoman inheritance. As we seek to make sense of these conflicts, McMeekin’s powerful exposé of Russia’s aims in the First World War will illuminate our understanding of the twentieth century.

On the Origins of War

On the Origins of War
Author: Donald Kagan
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 625
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0385423756

A brilliant and vitally important history of why states go to war, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Peloponnesian War. War has been a fact of life for centuries. By lucidly revealing the common threads that connect the ancient confrontations between Athens and Sparta and between Rome and Carthage with the two calamitous World Wars of the twentieth century, renowned historian Donald Kagan reveals new and surprising insights into the nature of war and peace. Vivid, incisive, and accessible, Kagan's powerful narrative warns against complacency and urgently reminds us of the importance of preparedness in times of peace.

The Origins of Major War

The Origins of Major War
Author: Dale C. Copeland
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2013-02-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801467055

One of the most important questions of human existence is what drives nations to war-especially massive, system-threatening war. Much military history focuses on the who, when, and where of war. In this riveting book, Dale C. Copeland brings attention to bear on why governments make decisions that lead to, sustain, and intensify conflicts. Copeland presents detailed historical narratives of several twentieth-century cases, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. He highlights instigating factors that transcend individual personalities, styles of government, geography, and historical context to reveal remarkable consistency across several major wars usually considered dissimilar. The result is a series of challenges to established interpretive positions and provocative new readings of the causes of conflict. Classical realists and neorealists claim that dominant powers initiate war. Hegemonic stability realists believe that wars are most often started by rising states. Copeland offers an approach stronger in explanatory power and predictive capacity than these three brands of realism: he examines not only the power resources but the shifting power differentials of states. He specifies more precisely the conditions under which state decline leads to conflict, drawing empirical support from the critical cases of the twentieth century as well as major wars spanning from ancient Greece to the Napoleonic Wars.

What Causes War?

What Causes War?
Author: Greg Cashman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 621
Release: 2013-07-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0742566528

Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, this classic text presents a comprehensive survey of the many alternative theories that attempt to explain the causes of interstate war. For each theory, Greg Cashman examines the arguments and counterarguments, considers the empirical evidence and counterevidence generated by social-science research, looks at historical applications of the theory, and discusses the theory’s implications for restraining international violence. Among the questions he explores are: Are humans aggressive by nature? Do individual differences among leaders matter? How might poor decision making procedures lead to war? Why do leaders engage in seemingly risky and irrational policies that end in war? Why do states with internal conflicts seem to become entangled in wars with their neighbors? What roles do nationalism and ethnicity play in international conflict? What kinds of countries are most likely to become involved in war? Why have certain pairs of countries been particularly war-prone over the centuries? Can strong states deter war? Can we find any patterns in the way that war breaks out? How do balances of power or changes in balances of power make war more likely? Do social scientists currently have an answer to the question of what causes war? Cashman examines theories of war at the individual, substate, nation-state, dyadic, and international systems level of analysis. Written in a clear and accessible style, this interdisciplinary text will be essential reading for all students of international relations.

The Origins Of War

The Origins Of War
Author: Arther Ferrill
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2018-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429975724

When did war begin? Standard military accounts tend to start with the Graeco-Persian wars, laying undue emphasis on the preeminence of Greek heavy infantry. But, as this strikingly original and entertaining book shows, the origins of war can be traced back not to the Iron Age, or even to the Bronze Age, but to the emergence of settled life itself nearly 10,000 years ago. The military revolution that occurred then?the invention of major new weapons, the massive fortifications, the creation of strategy and tactics?ultimately gave rise to the great war machines of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Persia that dominated the Near East until the time of Alexander the Great.It is Arther Ferrill's thesis that in the period before Alexander there were two independent lines of military development?a Near Eastern one culminating in the expert integration of cavalry, skirmishers, and light infantry and a Greek one based on heavy infantry. When Philip and Alexander blended the two traditions in their crack Macedonian army, the result was a style of warfare that continued, despite technological changes, down to Napoleon.This newly revised edition presents detailed and copiously illustrated accounts of all the major battles on land and sea up to the fourth century b.c., analyzes weapons from the sling to the catapult, and discusses ancient strategy and tactics, making this a book for armchair historians everywhere.

The Origins of the American Civil War

The Origins of the American Civil War
Author: Brian Holden Reid
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2014-09-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317871944

The American Civil War (1861-65) was the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century and its impact continues to be felt today. It, and its origins have been studied more intensively than any other period in American history, yet it remains profoundly controversial. Brian Holden Reid's formidable volume is a major contribution to this ongoing historical debate. Based on a wealth of primary research, it examines every aspect of the origins of the conflict and addresses key questions such as was it an avoidable tragedy, or a necessary catharsis for a divided nation? How far was slavery the central issue? Why should the conflict have errupted into violence and why did it not escalate into world war?