The First World War had profound consequences both for the evolution of the international system and for domestic political systems. How and why did the war start? Offering a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this volume brings together a distinguished group of diplomatic historians and international relations scholars to debate the causes of the war. Organized around several theoretically based questions, it shows how power, alliances, historical rivalries, militarism, nationalism, public opinion, internal politics, and powerful personalities shaped decision-making in each of the major...

This volume is a collection of some of the most influential essays by Jack Levy on the causes of interstate war. These studies focus on the role of power in the international system, the domestic sources of security policy and war, and the psychology of decision-making. Among the themes uniting all of these studies is that there are patterns in the processes leading to interstate wars, that these patterns are complex, and that an understanding of war requires rigorous theory and that a key prerequisite of theory is conceptual clarity. The focus is on theoretical essays on war and on...