One has to study a work like this to really begin to see why and how WWI, and then WWII, rolled out in the manner in which they did.
Americans have long been taught, more or less, that they were really mainly German wars of aggression; that both wars were more or less caused by Germany, and that the other powers were more or less innocent victims of these aggressions.
Michael Howard even took this position in "Prussia In European History," "1945-End Of An Era?", and elsewhere, although some of his writings, throughout, appear at times to grudgingly acknowledge a more complicated picture of causes and responsibilities.
Professor Kaiser also adhered to this kind of account in Politics & War, p 323, although he, too, I believe, was in a position to know better.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, when one looks at behind the scenes accounts and at the geopolitical situation.
Kennan wrote some good works on the 19th Century diplomatic and historical run up to WWI.
The Crimean and Franco Prussian Wars were not merely isolated aberrations, either.
Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, gives a fuller behind the scenes account of responsibility, going back into the 19th century, than found elsewhere.
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