David Kaiser is an independent scholar.

• Preface, 2000 Introduction 1. The General Crisis of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries The Nature of Early Modern Politics The Spanish Imperial Experience French Politics from the Wars of Religion to the Death of Mazarin The Thirty Years' War The English Civil War in European Perspective The Failure of the State 2. The Age of Louis XIV The Coming of a New Era The France of Louis XIV The Maritime Powers and the Hapsburg States Smaller States during the Reign of Louis XlV The Political Achievement of the Late Seventeenth Century 3. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era The Enlightenment and European International Politics Sources and Consequences of the Wars of the French Revolution The Napoleonic Era Rationalism and History 4. The Era of the Two World Wars European Politics in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries European Imperialism and Economic Prosperity, 1880-1914 The Impact of Nationalism and the Outbreak of the First World War The First World War The Failure of Reconstruction, 1919-1933 Hitler and the Second World War Extermination and Transfer: The Nationalities Question and the Second World War The Origins of Totalitarianism Conclusion Afterword, 2000 Index

Praise for the previous edition:This is an ambitious book which takes a large subject and tackles it boldly...A stimulating book which spurs its readers to consider wide and difficult issues and deserves to be widely read.