Paul W. Schroeder, „Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered“
Stealing Horses presents arguably the finest considerations yet of the origins of the First World War. Breaking with accounts which focus on the actions of a single state or the final countdown to hostilities, Paul W. Schroeder describes the systemic crisis engulfing the Great Powers. They were more interested in colonial plunder overseas (‘stealing horses to great applause’, in the old Spanish adage) than the traditional statecraft of European peace-making. Preserving the balance of power required preserving all the essential actors in it, including a tottering Austria-Hungary. This the British in particular failed to recognise. The Central Powers may have started the War but that does not mean they in any real sense caused it. In the end Schroeder recalls the verdict of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: ‘All are punished’.
Reviews
„A kaleidoscopic set of essays on the European state system in the century leading up to and during the Great War… written with calm and analytical rigor.“ – Mathias Fuelling, Jacobin
„How had the world by 1914 become susceptible to a disastrous systemic breakdown? The one American historian who rose to this analytical challenge was Paul Schroeder. These historical insights have an obvious urgency today“ – Nicholas Mulder, Financial Times
About the author
Paul W. Schroeder is the author of, among other things, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 in the Oxford History of Modern Europe. He taught history and political science at the University of Illinois for many years and died in 2020 at the age of ninety-three.
384 pages / February 2025
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