The Two Worlds of Nineteenth Century International Relations: The Bifurcated Century

This edited volume presents a new, grand and global narrative for international relations (IR) history in the pivotal nineteenth century. Typically considered by IR scholars to be a long century of relative peace after 1815, the contributors offer a reconceptualization of IR in this century, arguing that it is temporally bifurcated, with very different patterns of behavior in the first and second halves.

A mid-century discontinuity – a "pivot period" – marks the transition phase in Europe a...