What is the relationship between economic interdependence, war, and peace? William Mulligan addresses this key question in a major new account of international economic relations and the origins of the First World War. He shows how economic interdependence reshaped power politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, channelling rivalries into trading and financial relations and constraining states from going to war. However, this reshaping of power relations created new asymmetries of power with winners and losers. And as the losers turned towards the use of military force to compensate for their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they altered the logic of economic interdependence, which now came to serve the militarisation of European politics, rather than act as a constraint on war. This shift in the logic of economic interdependence was a key pre-condition for the outbreak of war in 1914.

‘Mulligan’s important book returns to the question of the relationship between economics and war first popularized by Norman Angell. A must-read for those interested in the causes of the First World War, it explains how Europe’s trade and financial relations came to serve the aims of war not peace before 1914.’

Patricia Clavin - author of Securing the World Economy: The Reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920–1946

‘William Mulligan has already established himself as one of the leading European historians of his generation and in The Fraying Bonds of Peace, he tells the story of Europe's descent into war in a way that has great if frightening resonance for the world today. As Mulligan details brilliantly, the international system that first kept the peace, began to fray badly from 1911 as states that felt they were being left behind increasingly saw the military option as credible. As such, in a very short time, the interconnected economic relations that had kept Europe peaceful, turned into a catalyst for war.’

Phillips O’Brien - author of War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why

‘How growing economic interdependence and competitive great power politics became entangled before 1914 has long been debated by historians and international relations scholars. In The Fraying Bonds of Peace William Mulligan offers an impressive panorama of pre-1914 international economic and financial ties, ties that constrained and, ultimately, enabled decisions for war. A bravura performance.’

T. G. Otte - author of Statesman of Europe: A Biography of Sir Edward Grey