This survey of the foreign relations of the great powers is essentially a straightforward diplomatic history: an attempt to describe how statesmen conducted foreign policy, how they dealt with crisis situations, and how they succeeded or failed to resolve them.

Norman Rich is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Brown University. After receiving his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949, he served for five years on the Board of Editors of the captured German Foreign Office documents, a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the British Foreign Office, and the French Foreign Ministry. He has taught history at Bryn Mawr College, Michigan State University, and Brown University, where he helped direct the program in International Relations. He has been awarded research fellowships at the Center of International Studies, Princeton, and St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and in addition has been awarded Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships for research in England and Germany. His publications include Friedrich von Holstein: Politics and Diplomacy in the Era of Bismarck and Wilhelm II, 2 vols. (1965); The Age of Nationalism and Reform (1970, 2nd edition 1977); Hitler’s War Aims, vol. I; Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion; vol. II; The Establishment of the New Order (1973-74); and Why the Crimean War? A Cautionary Tale (1985, paperback edition, 1990). He is a co-editor of Documents on German Foreign Policy, in many volumes, (1949 ff.) and, with M.H. Fisher, of The Holstein Papers: Memoirs, Diaries, Correspondence, 4 vols. (1954-1961). He has contributed numerous articles and book reviews to American, Canadian, and European journals. .