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...