The New Atlantic Order

Patrick O. Cohrs is Professor of International History at the University of Florence. He was associate professor of history at Yale University, a fellow at Harvard University, and Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. He is the author of the acclaimed The Unfinished Peace after World War I (Cambridge, 2006).

• Contents; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; List of maps; Introduction; Part I. Inevitable Descent into the Abyss?: The Wider Pre-History of the Great War. The Involution of International Politics at the Dawn of the “Long” 20th Century: 1. Peace through equilibrium. The 19th century's Vienna system – and its disintegration; 2. Transformation and corrosion. The turn towards power politics and global imperialist competition in the formative decades of the “long” 20th century; 3. The “ascent” of an exceptionalist world power. The American special path and ephemeral aspirations for an Atlantic order of empires; 4. Counterforces – and first visions of a novel transatlantic peace. Internationalist aspirations to overcome imperialist power politics before 1914; 5. The unavoidable war? Long and short roads to the catastrophe of 1914; Part II. The Greatest War – and No Peace Without Victory: The Impact of the First World War, Competing Visions of Peace and the Struggle over the Shape of a New – Atlantic – World Order: 6. Tectonic changes. The consequences of the war and the transformation of the transatlantic constellation; 7. The political and ideological “war within the war”. The transatlantic competition over the shape of the postwar order; 8. No “peace without victory” – and the making of the frail Atlantic armistice of November 1918; 9. No prospects for a lasting peace? The urgent and the systemic challenges of peacemaking and the need for a new Atlantic order; Part III. Reorientations and Incipient Learning Processes: The Dominant – Atlantic – Approaches to Peace and Order after the Great War: 10. Towards a progressive Atlantic peace of the victors. The reorientation of American approaches to peace and international order; 11. The search for a new equilibrium – and an Atlantic concert. The reorientation of British approaches to peace and international order; 12. The search for security and an Atlantic alliance of the victors. The reorientation of French approaches to peace and international order; 13. A new beginning? German pursuits of a Wilsonian “peace of justice” and first steps towards an Atlanticist foreign policy; Part IV. No “Pax Atlantica”: The First Attempt to Found a Modern Atlantic Order – and its Frustration: 14. An impossible peace? The incomplete transatlantic peacemaking process of 1919; 15. Novel superstructure of a new Atlantic order? The struggle to found the League of Nations and the limitations of the covenant of 1919; 16. No just peace without security. The pivotal German settlement and the struggle to found a new Atlantic security system; 17. The eastern frontiers – and limits – of the new order. Self-determination, the critical Polish-German question and the wider challenges of “reorganising” Eastern Europe; 18. A formative threat? The Western powers and the Bolshevik challenge; 19. The political and moral stakes of reparations – and the limited advances towards a new Atlantic economic order; 20. The imposed peace. The missed opportunity of a negotiated settlement with Germany?; 21. The truncated Atlantic peace order of 1919 – a re-appraisal; Part V. Epilogue: The Political Consequences of the Peace: The Challenges after Versailles and the Making of the Unfinished Atlantic Peace of the 1920s: 22. Peace undermined. The divergent outlooks of the victors, the consequences of Wilson's defeat and the escalation of Europe's postwar crisis; 23. Towards a new order. Constructive learning processes and the construction of an Atlantic peace beyond Versailles; 24. The remarkable consolidation of the nascent Pax Atlantica of the 1920s – and its dissolution under the impact of the world economic crisis; Part VI. Final Perspectives – the Cadmeian Peace: 25. The eventual creation of the “long” 20th century's Atlantic order after 1945 and the crucial lessons of the era of the First World War; Bibliography.

'In this opus magnum Patrick Cohrs presents an original and thought-provoking re-appraisal of the transformation of world politics between the era of global imperialism and the aftermath of the First World War. This is a compelling book that should be of interest to anyone who wants to understand how challenging it was to create a stable international order after the 20th century's crucial cataclysm, how the key actors struggled to build a durable peace, and how the consequences of what they thought and did still shape the world of the 21st century.' Paul W. Schroeder, author of The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848